I tried the alternatives people were suggesting on reddit at the time:

• Some are clean (no trackers, etc), but change the experience too much and I want a traditional launcher.
• Some work like I expect them to, but Exodus ( https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/ ) shows lots of trackers... moving from one that might track in the future to one that already tracks is not a good move.
• Open source alternatives, which I prefer, either move very slow (Neo Launcher) or are dead.
• Not all handle gesture navigation or Android 12/13 well.

So I'm still on Nova. I did upgrade to the beta as after a certain A13 update the stable version started bugging out, but that's it. I use LineageOS and can remove internet access from apps, so that's what I did. My hope is that Neo Launcher becomes more active, but until a few things are improved/fixed, I'll stay on Nova.

I could just use the stock launcher on LineageOS btw... the reason I don't is that it's easier to backup an app and restore it after a reset/moving ROMs.