I only ever see notifications of direct replies, not indirect ones.

Definitely by design. I do not want to receive a geometrically increasing number of notifications as a comment chain expands underneath my comment.

On reddit (maybe it was the Enhancement Suite) IIRC is an option to Watch a thread, which basically does what you want

I wouldn’t delete an email to mark it as read. I don’t think hide is sufficiently similar

Ok, use Android then. Millions of people don’t care about those things because they have different priorities for their phone which Apple accounts for when they decide which features to roll out.

It’s in beta 1. Some apps look kinda bad if you’re trying to pick a horrid color. Hopefully they do something to improve contrast before release.

Every new Android version adds features that have been on iOS forever. Both OSes have different priorities.

Android will often add new features but they are poorly integrated or thought out. iOS tends to add features with a much higher level of refinement the first time around.