I also looked at it a few years ago when I last rebuilt my media server, and ultimately decided the same.
I now run SnapRAID [1] with mergerfs [2] and for my use, it's got many benefits over zfs and normal raid setups:
I could start from my existing volumes, without having to move any files.
I can use my random bunch of varying size disks purchased over several years, and add as needed. I tend to buy a new drive every couple years at whatever cheapest $/GB is, which means usually each drive is 2x the size of the last one I bought.
If something catastrophic fails like the system itself, the disks are just normal independent ext4 volumes - I can read them from basically anything. I've had to recover a RAID5 array using replacement hardware before, it's not fun and not something I want to ever have to do at home.