I just want like 3 or 4 apps, and the task manager is fine, if somewhat aggressive at stopping them. I wish they had better suspend functionality, I was under the impression they were able to dump their working memory to disk nowadays but clearly not on android 12.

Google Maps used to be a staple for me, but actually now very often Osmand is doing a better job. I only use gmail because i have gmail, and because I had to ditch proton due to budgetary constraints.

I don't know what other things that you refer to that are better with google play enabled, but google play services, certainly. These need to be replaced. There's a whole swag of things that tie to an account with them that need an account and a third party cache (or at least your own cache, separate from the device) to function.