Right, I think this is where we are misommunicating.
I use my fairphone as my daily. I also have to use OKTA, and stuff. And I dont use microg for them cause they don’t talk to google. I suppose technically the apps dont use microg, just like they dont use google.
The problem you are going to run into though is that google has baked itself into android that you need something to trick android into thinking its operable.
In stock android, you COULD have a workspace that only uses microg, but considering you otherwise MUST have play services… Why?
Alternatively, you can use microg to handle all your google bullshit to sign yourself in locally and actually use the services that require google without actually signing in to google.
Frankly, it sounds more like you want an Ubuntu/Linux (not android Linux) phone or something, but I’m not able to advise on that.
There are significant portions of android that are effectively under google monopoly, in truth, if not technically in fact.
First android is a phone OS, don’t assume desktop rules really apply the same way. There’s not tons of use for a workspace here, or at least not in my personal experience. Its my phone, my phone IS my workspace.
Second, android makes the assumption that you want basic functionality like email, and internet use, and messaging, location info for mapping, etc, so all of that got coded directly in to the OS. yeah you can use Firefox but can you uni stall chrome? Can you unintstall gmail? Often the answer is no, as you aren’t the admin of your phone, the carrier is and they have deals with google.
There are attempts to work around this, AOSP is one of them, but the fact that its a thing in the first place illustrates what I’m trying to say.
Third, among those things google has an effective monopoly on is their app store. Its incredibly difficult to, as a normal person who is not especially technically inclined, to make heads or tails of fdroid, or worse to have to find your own app store.
Thus, /e/os is stuck. Package microg, or dont provide access to the google app store for their consumer focused devices, or use google play services.
Packaging microg was easily the best option from the perspective of a business that wants to sell a functional device.
As to the specifics of AOSP folk, they’re basically the arch nerds of android. I love them but I dont understand much. I do know that it does not seem as though AOSP as a ROM is widely used, and that many of the projects around deGoogled android are basically single person communities, in that one person does all the work and burns out (Linege) or are… toolbags is the term I’m going to diplomatically use. Specifically graphene where the admin wound up being a toolbag, bad enough for Louis Rossman to do a video on.