That's great news indeed, especially about the hotspot.
Regarding the new build, I'm sure you know better when you have the time to work on this.
I have some issues with my phone. I'm pretty sure they aren't ROM related, but I would like to read your opinion on this anyway.
So, on this ROM, there is a large number of apps not available for my device on the Aurora Store. You mentioned something about Google doing google things to Aurora Store, but I think is more than that. I downloaded an app called Family Link for Parents (by Google). I've installed it and, when I opened it, I received the message "Family Link is no longer supported on Android 4.4 (Kitkat)".
I'm sure it's not connected to your ROM, as exactly the same thing happened while I was on the Havoc OS GSI (Android 10). That particular app had the same behaviour and, similarly, a lot of apps were not available for my P9 on Google Play .
So, I'm not sure what to do. What on my phone tells apps and app stores that the phone is running Kitkat? Is it related to the vendor? To the fact I have TWRP installed and no encryption?
I would like some opinions...
In fact, there are multiple things to look at:
1. AuroraStore in general
Google is continuously evolving their PlayStore infrastructure, and apps like AuroraStore need to be maintained to cope. There are some slight "glitches" sometimes to work around . . . (see own AuroraStore support thread or their Telegram chat)
2. AuroraStore on GSI builds
For whatever reason, on GSI builds, AuroraStore behaves worse - also on my P9, I can't find some apps, which are no problem on my other devices. I don't have a good solution for that, except for obtaining them alternatively (e.g. extract from other device, or APKmirror.com, ...)
3. Installed apps on this build
Once the app has been installed, the job of AuroraStore is done. So if an app behaves weird after install, it is related to the app and the environment, in which it finds itself.
This build for example has microG installed, and not the original Google Play services (I tend to call them Spy-Services, as this reflects the reality better). microG aims at providing compatibility to apps having Google play dependencies (for example, push messaging), but it is not designed and also not able to cover everything of the original Play services - this is partly intended (as nobody really needs all the advertising infrastructure and Spyware of the genuine Play services), and partly too difficult to achieve (Play services are closed source and difficult to reverse-engineer).
Especially apps directly developed by Google usually deeply integrate with the Play services and often expect to find the full range of play services functionality. So if a Google-developped app complains, I would not be too surprised.
It could therefore be (but I don't know), that the "KitKat" message is simply the result of the lack of a certain API function, this app is expecting to find on the device. Or the result of bad programming: if some check fails and instead of giving the proper details of the issue, the developer has made an "assumption" that "such things could only be possible in KitKat" . . .