I don't know, it always worked fine for me, and I edit text a lot (writing on the iPad, not coding).
>And the crazy part is: just like this article, everyone overlooks it
Given the above, maybe not so crazy? Maybe you're too fussy?
>Think about how long it takes/ho many steps it takes to put quotes around a chunk of text;
Why not put them when as you write it, in which case it's quote text quote? Is that not what one does 90% of the time?
And if you remembered it later, how slow it is to just move the cursor to start and end of segment? With the spacebar cursor-move mode it's almost as fact as having a mouse.
>to correct a misspelling
Tap on squiggly-underlined word, accept correct spelling from suggestions?
>and Apple (nor Google, as far as I know) has done zero to fix it in years (a decade?)
Do what exactly? What fancy UI you have in mind that solves it?
And if you do that much writing, why don't you just hook a bluetooth keyboard? Then with some shortcuts to jump by whole words/start-end of line/etc, you can fly, as you would on a laptop.