I just run them with unit scaling. The digitizer is accurate enough, especially if you live an OSK window open and stick to keyboard shortcuts. I prefer the extra screen realestate.
I do. I run Fluxbox on PostMarketOS. I use dino with jmp.chat for mms. I use emacs diary+git for calendar. I have some custom power management service I wrote shortly after getting the phone so it gets long battery life. My bank and brokerage both have decent web sites.
I'll never go back to a non-Linux phone, I'd rather not have a phone at all than tolerate the older mobile OSes.
I will never run your app if you build it this way, that sounds absolutely awful. Just write a GTK app or if that's too hard a CLI app since the CLI is first class on the PinePhone.
My favorite thing about Gnome is that I don't have to use it. It's there so that the subsystems get used by normal people and bugs get hammered out and I can do the same thing with a small shell wrapper.