There is no alternative. Unless you pay by cash and have verified that all of the utilities and services you consume are not laundering your data then you’re just wasting your time by putting up with a horrible phone OS experience.
I use it because it's familiar, hackable and respectful to my attention. It works the way I want it to work and it's capable enough to fulfill all my needs. Switching to Android would be a downgrade on all these aspects. I'm aware that it would be an upgrade in some other aspects that I care about less.