Not sure how /e/ is supposed to be more private yet less open?
I'm using my i9506 (ks01lte) as a daily driver, though I think I'll switch to a i9505 because it has official lineageos support, which means probably less weird SD card bugs.
I am not sure how much work that would be to maintain it yourself on your particular phone, but it might not be that much? I don't really know, though.