I used HEY for a week, but I’m going back to Gmail

I did the same. Paper Trail and The Feed are effectively black holes since you have no way of knowing there are unread items in there.

I also prefer inbox zero, essentially marking emails as “done” by archiving them. With hey you would do the opposite, “putting aside” emails which I found very clunky.

I wanted to like it, and I’ll check back in on it in a few months to see if it’s improved. As it stands the workflows absolutely do not work for me.

Completely agree with this. I didn't even know I received email until I checked Everything area or each individual area. They need a badge indicating where new emails are coming in, so I can check. Especially with trying to get new users accustomed to their UI.