Available Apps and Google Play Store access

One can dumb down a smart phone, but you can't smart up a dumb phone.

I do hope that more applications will be available than what I'm seeing so far, which appears very limited in both type and choices. Ideally, I would like full access to the Google Play store (or at least close to full, as Murena allows with their custom eOS).

I think having flexibility in what apps you want and don't want would make the product more attractive to me (and I imagine others) as not only do different folks have different ideas and approaches to their minimalism, but some people also have apps that are virtually necessities. There are tools that some of us need that in my mind at least don't go against digital minimalism. I'm thinking of everything from apps for weather, tasks, maps, wellbeing, health, fitness, communication (like Whatapp, Signal, Telegram), payments, banking, retail store cards, 2 factor authentication, password storage, as well as any number of other important utilities, along with even different podcast or music apps.

A custom minimal launcher and suite of suggested minimal apps is one thing; preventing one from much customization to suit their real life needs is quite another. In addition, wouldn't going to all the trouble of building out a custom OS and app suite only add unnecessarily to the development time and therefore cost? Not to mention holding up possible Android OS or security updates? What is the real disadvantage of simply giving folks some suggestions but otherwise a clean slate for them to build the minimal device for them? Wouldn't this also future proof it more by allowing for the adoption of new or different (minimalism-compatible) apps, rather than tying us down to a specific suite?

Perhaps this is simply not the phone they are building, and not the phone for me?

Would love to hear the thoughts of others here on this issue!