It's valid question for people unfamiliar with the project, but it is the AOSP in terms of looks, GrapheneOS does not customize the UI in any way beyond what their own features require as additions. Note that Pixel OS is not AOSP. The default home app of course also influences the experience quite the bit unless you replace it, which is what I'd personally recommend everyone to do as it's so incredibly barebones. Lawnchair is already a big step up as an open source alternative.
Do you refer to app-accessible root or user root access? The former is absolutely inherently insecure and compromises the security model of Android/GOS.
There's nobody gatekeeping what can be studied and what can't. You claim millions are being wasted; by who? Is the goverment funding the studies you deem as wasted? If so you'd think that rather than making up a study you'd be able to give a single example. Should be very easy if millions are being wasted on these what I'd assume you'd call "bogus" studies.
It can be a factual statement about the commercial VPN landscape at large, but an incorrect statement about many individual VPN providers. It lacks nuance as a statement.
Motorola devices that match the GrapheneOS requirements are coming next year. It's good thing they're not compromising on hardware requirements that would undermine the goals of the project. If there's anyone to blame it's the dismal state of affairs on the hardware security side of my most Android phone manufacturers.
Are you behind finnish IP? The site owner decided to ban all Finnish IPs due to a dispute with Finnish person who doesn't even seem to be living there. Also they DDoSed their blog leading to archive.is being banned from wikipedia
Pixel camera app is fully supported by GOS, you just install it from Play store (or from other sources). If you don't have Google Photos installed the last photo preview won't work, but you can install a 'shim' app that fixes it without need for Photos app: https://github.com/lukaspieper/Gcam-Services-Provider