[michaelmrose]

>Most obvious example is Firefox. The Debian Project allows Firefox to update outside the packaging system, automatically, at the whim of Firefox.

It seems likely that you personally chose to install a flatpak or tar.gz version probably because you are running an older no longer supported version of Debian.

>These days, the only way to avoid that (crashes) is...

Running older unsupported versions with known never to be fixed security holes isn't good advice nor is ripping out the plumbing. Its almost never a great idea to start ripping out the floorboards to get at the pipes.

Pipewire seems pretty stable and if you really desire something more minimal it's better to start with something minimal than stripping something down.

Void is nice on this front for instance.