This is kinda where I get to "then why use obsidian?". Like to me the whole point is to kinda have some linking and clean notes organization, and i'm keeping it fairly simple (just some basic tags). But yeah I suspect a large part is trying to bend it into something it's not.

Yeah. All I use it for is a listing of some markdown files. I don’t use any online features. After a decade of experimenting I’ve found this very simple approach is perfect for me.