I have the same struggles, Amen!

It’s nova launcher, paid, but worth it. Also has the nice side effect that when you move to a different phone tour UI remains the same

Look it doesn’t look as good as your UI, but it’s as close as I could get to the monochrome look that I wanted, The widgets still have full colour:

You can do the same monochromatic thing with nova launcher and whicons

I absolutely love 99% Invisible

Monitor your blood sugar

Not sure about annoying, but have you considered psyopus? It tends to be my goto to piss people off

3 looks like rotala indica. If it is you might need more light in there