I'm with you on this, I think that data is 99% of what is important and the rest can be recreated or improvised and if in your system you rely too much on file metadata your need more engineering
Except sometimes it's a 3rd party's app whose data you have to restore, and you don't have control over their engineers.
$ /usr/bin/rsync –version
...doesn't return anything referencing openrsync. I'm on Sequoia 15.3.1.