I used to spend so much time flashing different ROMs, and even cooking a few modifications of my own. These days I find it much easier just to buy first-party devices like a Pixel and just move on with my day. They seem to have the least 'gotchas' in my experience. Stuff is unlocked, it gets updates, and doesn't have bloat/malware baked in.
Google is one of the lightest offenders in the ecosystem. Remember that any other Android device is going to have Google PLUS the manufacturer junkware. Pixels can also be de-rooted with custom firmware installed, and graphene is hella polished.
Given the fact that all phones have closed-source baseband firmware and are hooked up to vulnerable networks running ss7, they've got worse things to worry about if they're using a phone anyway.
