I agree with you on everything you wrote, thanks for taking time to explain it.
The situation is not great, it's true that for regular users Chrome is basically spyware and battery drain.
I've been waiting for Mozilla to create a better webdev console (or even copy Chrome's) and I'd move instantly.
I do use more than just Chrome (ungoogled Chromium, Edge, Firefox) and I also experience the "regular user" problem when a site is fine in Chrome but not in Firefox so I'm split between two worlds as well, and believe me - I feel your frustration.
I don't like Google, but Chrome is a better browser - especially if you're frontend dev. I'd love for Firefox to be better but it's way slower and its developer console is no match for Chrome's.