This is the whole point, they should stop nitpicking and start to do it (GrapheneOS side), even if it is not going to be THE most secure phone, there is enough of features that are far more useful then just security (like privacy). I don't mind if they make it payable. With money they will get (I suspect there will be quite a bit less pixels sold) they can make a new phone that will have all the bells and whistles GrapheneOS wants and on the other side, Fairphone developers will figure out it is $$$ worthy to do it.
GrapheneOS has bunch of requirements that are expensive while Fairphone has zero chance to figure out, if investing would make any economical sense, while their normal users dont really care about that security but might regarding privacy. This is a stale-mate position.
Found info about GrapheneOS installations, 250k users(1). Lets say 25% are on old pixels. This is 60k sold pixels.
All Fairphones sold by 2022 were 400k(2).
1. 2024, https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/12281-how-many-grapheneos-u...