Problem is these aftermarket roms have way more frequent updates. OP is tired of constant updating, complicated interfaces, and wants something that "just works". Good luck with that.

Unfortunately, anything modern is designed to be cheap and throwaway in design, as inflation would easily push the price of the devices today up to 4 times that of the old stuff it it were designed with the same durability. Anything old enough to be the kind of device that lasts decades is incompat as technology has marched on, and old stock "new" still has an age issue - yes, electronics still go bad just by age.

Best I can say is, for your phone, a modern old people flip phone will still connect to the cell net, but it has a stripped down Android - this is because designing a one of a kind OS for a phone that has to use VoLTE VoIP and RCS messaging would be absurdly expensive, and slapping a bottom barrel SoC with Android already made for it is way cheaper. Phones all come with web browsers because the data net is now they do voice these days, so why not include a basic feature that can be useful to some? My first cell phone was a flip phone with 1.5MB RAM that didn't even have bluetooth and it had a web browser... which was hot garbage, barely able to show me a paragraph on the tiny screen and slower than dialup but I did on occason try to use it.

You can try the Lightphone or Lightphone 2, which is an "anti-feature" phone that specifically does not come with any features.

Samsung washing machines have been a PITA due to Samsung making them with sketchy quality. I'd say a cheap front loader from the hardware store would be good enough, if they have a non-smart appliance.

The smart TV thing is getting annoying, especially since everyone is doing it at all price points, but a computer monitor ($~100 for 21") does not have smart anything, has hdmi, and probably you will use your own stuff to connect to it. Only problem is if the monitor lacks an HDMI ARC port, which is an HDMI that can send audio data back thru the link for sound systems, which you will need because monitors have trash speakers, unless you have a god tier set of 2.1 speakers with a 3.5mm jack.

As for the car and bluetooth, it's always a hassle - the older the car the less likely bluetooth will work reliably if at all, but if you take calls on the road, you have to keep this working, as it is a safety issue. As for car spying, research the car and find out how to disconnect the telemetry modem. Until very recently, a lot of older cars with telemetry run just fine with the modem disconnected, or an aftermarket head unit installed with the telemetry unit disconnected.

1: VR motion sickness is an issue some people get, unfortunately. It happens if you have a mind that refuses to acknowledge and accept conflicting information from your inner ears and your eyes.... which people with motion sickness often have. When you try to "push" yourself to accept VR movement when you are already feeling sick from it, it gets worse. You're supposed to only do a few minutes of movement in VR at a time, and stop when you start feeling sick. Getting over this is referred to as "getting your VR legs". Once you do, you will be able to do hours without it showing up, and motion sickness irl might get less problematic.

2: Standalone VR, which runs a special version of Android, as much as I'm not a fan, is already here and usable with the (absurdly affordable) Meta Quest series, the (Chinese alternative) Pico, the (Apple tax'ed expensive) Apple Vision, and possibly Valve's new Index.

3: Not every game is meant to be played in VR, but vehicle games and a lot of other unique experiences that require you to have your head on a swivel or interact with lots of in-world objects in a 3D space? Amazing. Playing Flight Simulator without a VR headset just isn't the same.

You have to use all caps when you say that, like this guy

Ah, someone brought their emotional support truck for the bread and burger run

Good, now keep the momentum up, Aptera. You're so close to the reality.

The Honda Civics of the 1980s did not have a drag coefficient below 0.2

Microsoft Flight Simulator: A whole airplane on the couch

I prefer the ones with the car dash warning icons on it

This is like people complaining about how Ubuntu 16.04 LTS support ended not long ago (2021-04-29)

Or macOS 10.9 Mavericks (2016-12-01)

Or Android 6.0 (2018-08-01)

Or Debian 8 "Jessie" (2018-06-17)

Or Linux Mint 17 (2019-07-01)

Or Fedora 23 (2016-12-20)

Or Slackware 14.1 (2024-01-01)

Of all of these, not even Slackware comes close to how long Microsoft has supported Windows 10 post release (2015)

Baseball... cold showers... baseball... cold showers...

Turns out vehicle simulations are hard. You either have games that play like a cabinet arcade or require a "simmer" setup (control cockpit) to really be good at.

And then there's the work that goes into the level of detail. Example, Forza Horizon 5 doesn't even have the underside of most cars modelled, to save on polys and performance, but there's still a lot of little details that have to be modelled, textured, and sound recorded. This is even more important when a driving game goes into VR, because you will notice when something in the interior is missing or offmodel.

Also shoutout to Live For Speed, the active-since-Windows-XP open beta / early access mediumcore simulation that's had VR support for a long while, and a release date that will probably coincide with Half Life 3.