I'm constantly surprised by comments on a tech-savvy site such as HN by people who'd rather live in a slide rule world. I enjoy infotainment systems because I can listen to Spotify and podcasts and easily call/text people safely while driving on long haul drives, which I often find myself on. I have zero complaints about my system other than not having the level of customizability a nerd such was myself desires.
Me too, after using Android auto on one car it's a must-have on any new car for me. Better nav system, Google assistant, Spotify, podcasts, messages. Turns my car into a drive able phone.
My car has CarPlay and I've found it to be very disappointing, so much so that mainly I now do as you suggest and simply use the iPhone with a dash mount. I get the audio over Bluetooth, which seems to work well enough - it seems the Bluetooth implementation is older and better debugged.
The car's Bluetooth is satisfactory for taking calls.
Part of the problem is the car's unit, as it's Android and it crashes a lot when it's running CarPlay.
If you really need a touchscreen that badly, just buy an ipad and tape it to the dash, would probably offer way more feature and flexibility.
My truck had dials and audio jacks, what else do you really need? The car navigation systems I've seen are universally worse than google map.