In terms of “just giving up and taking simple mobile notes” I can also endorse Google Keep iOS - natural affordances match my typical eng/Phil related use cases better than Apple notes.
I used keep for a bit. I liked it and agree it does the same thing apple notes does. I settled on apple notes for no other reason than a weird sense of minimalism if that makes sense. I've installed so many note apps over the years that I was spending more time on that than actually using something. I decided enough was enough. Apple notes has flaws (especially if you use other platforms) but they all do. I got tired of worrying about it and just decided to go all in warts and all.
the one thing I miss in apple notes is being able to drag and drop items of a list with checkboxes to re-order them.
You can do that, just click and hold on the checkboxes.