I have a Pixel 7, stock Android 14. It is my only phone and I love the stock system. But I am trying to gradually ditch Google and its services, for reasons well-known in this community and Lemmy in general. How much would I gain/lose using a custom ROM with/without GApps?
One major annoyance is contact/calendar syncing. DAVX works great but you do need to set up your own provider. I ended up using my NAS, synology has apps that do that
If you need one online, mailbox.org includes CalDAV/CardDAV with all their email plans, the cheapest of which is $1/mo.