I use both on desktop for different people and the desktop Signal client doesn’t hold up well in comparison. In some ways it feels more clunky than the iMessage ancestor iChat did 20 years ago.

Really? I don't see any real difference between the UX of WhatsApp and Signal for example. And they're really on-par feature wise.

The only things in your list that are not available on Signal are "tons of animated emojis" and "bots". Recently they also introduced usernames to keep your phone number private. And Signal have had all the other things for a few years now, and with actual security.

https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/

Signal doesn't require sharing of phone numbers

And it has those little features like masked text and what not, features wise, telegram is just the best. I didn’t use Signal for a long time, you can’t edit the messages there!?

It no longer doesn't. It took them a while because you can't just slap features like that. It's not a string in a database like with Telegram.

Telegram has great UX because you can build things fast and easy when you don't have to give two shits about the security side of things. You can cover that part with grass-roots marketing department and volunteering shills.