@mreith This sounds like it’s better to be handled as a series of feature requests. Keep in mind that there are some limits as to what can be requested. If you know anything about programming in languages used in the codebase for the new apps, you might also be able to contribute to them.
But yes, as a friend of several newer iNat users I always recommend the classic apps when available. iNat Next takes up to a minute to triangulate a location with a fixed “positional accuracy” (I never had this problem on the classic app from what I remember), so even with only positioning system access (no cellular data/ WiFi) it’s better to just use iNat classic. That minute is enough time for multiple animals to see me and get spooked, a wave to crash and displace a shell I wanted to observe next, etc. The classic app available to iOS, not even discussing Seek, tends to be better optimized in my experience for my aging phone and also allows more attributes of an observation to be applied to it before uploading like projects.
That’s the good part; at least both versions have basically most things the same with iNat Next having less features. When making an Introduction to iNaturalist slideshow fork of the original used as an example for iNaturalist Ambassadors, telling people what all the apps do and how they work might be helpful for people who don’t just want to use one version. You’re definitely going to be biased one way or another if you used multiple versions, but leave all options open for people you want to help use iNat.