I went back to action launcher which I really like.
I basically have one home screen with links to my most used stuff.
It has covers which I believe originated here but was later possible on Nova. Basically you make folders of apps that you can tap to open, but you can set that to swipe instead so that the tap just opens the first app in the folder
So for example I listen to podcasts way more often than music from my phone, so I have a folder for audio where I can tap to open podcasts or swipe to open the folder and get to music.
I then have a slide in drawer that has the weather and my calendar and that’s basically it. Very rarely need to go to the main app list once this is set up. I will likely never change this as I don’t really use that many apps regularly.