>1. Subscriptions are essentially useless. The UI focuses entirely on recommendations and doesn't show me videos from channels I am subscribed to unless I actually dig into the `library/subscriptions` UI.

I don't think Subscriptions are useless, the Subscription feed only show the published videos from your subscriptions, and in reverse chronological order, with no algorithmic shenanigans.

> Shorts. Shorts are everywhere and I don't want to see them, ever.

Me too, you can remove Shorts (on a browser) using this uBlock Origin filter https://letsblock.it/filters/youtube-shorts