Fossify Launcher looks to fit my needs, maybe. I can't see how to make the app list a button instead of having to drag up (I am anti-gesture. The only gesture I want to make in connection with a computer is obscene)

Also having some issues getting widgets on there... But Android is Android, so I'm sure it's not Fossify Launcher's fault, I had the widget I wanted and then I removed it cause I wanted a different size, and it won't add again. A restart will probably help. (Spoiler: it didn't)

Would also be nice if I could make widgets 2.5 columns wide. I like a 5 wide screen, but I want two widgets to share the screen width.

Yeah I resisted gestures but gave up when I found that enabling legacy nav buttons seemed to make things unreliable for me. Maybe when I first switched to Nova?

I also noticed that the widget editing is a bit clumsy with resizing on Fossify Launcher. It seems like there is some hidden state where long-press doesn't quite work the same way after some interaction. But I was able make progress after going through several other interactions like opening the menu via back gesture from home screen, locking and unlocking the screen, etc.

I don't know if it is Android or the launcher itself that makes the widget sizing so annoying. It seems to have a different bounding box for the resizing tool than what is actually rendered, so I end up with way more dead space around the widgets than I wanted.