A shameless plug, but you may also like Quod Libet[1]. Although not for everyone, it has very advanced searching and the more unusual integrations and features all implemented as plugins.
> But then I've got some scripts that maintain a copy of that collection, except converted to MP3 at a variable bitrate
Yes. I have / had been doing this for years, and just want to sing high praises of mp3fs[1], assuming some kind of Linux or macOS machine. It solves this problem in a way that I think more people should know about!
IMO it's because they've done very smart pivots / rebranding (VSCode, Github, NPM, even the Surfaces) and people who even know start thinking "new Microsoft"
Whilst I like the look of Cue... this argument reminds me of the Kubernetes trap
( We should use it... because Google does it and they're huuuuuuuge don't you know etc )
But do we really think that learning (current) Photoshop etc will have any relevance to them being successful in say 5-20 years? (if the graphic design world even exists by then)