"This somehow feels very sad and unfortunate, especially given the amazing handsets that Huawei puts out (P30 Pro). ..."Well, it's all in the eyes of beholder, isn't it. Franky, as I see it, that P30 Pro won't have Google's crappy spyware installed is an absolute blessing (it saves those who don't want Google spying on them a great deal of trouble by not having to root the phone, which is now quite difficult given that Huawei has stopped handing out keys to unlock the bootloader).
[BTW, I don't like Huawei one iota as a company but from my experience from using its technology—both phones and other communications equipment—I have found that it works very well indeed. It's often the small attention to detail that counts and that makes all the difference: for example, the OTG port on many of Huawei's smartphones reads NTFS drives directly out of the box without any mucking about—most other phones do not (they're usually limited to FAT32 and exFAT), which is a damn pain! In the past, this feature has been so important to me that I've chosen Huawei over other brands specifically because of it.]