> without disabling security features?

With Gatekeeper turned off, you’ll still get a warning on first launch which you can easily click through. (Unless Apple changed something in the last few versions—let me know if that’s the case—but it would be out of character for them to remove a warning...)

The “security feature” you don’t want to disable is precisely the thing you are complaining about, so I don’t understand why you’d keep it around.

> The added friction feels more like a way to force developers to pay Apple an annual fee for distributing rather than for my safety.

I don’t imagine Apple makes a substantial amount of money from $99/year developer subscriptions. The App Store is another story of course.