What would be the downsides of simply buying a big computer monitor instead of a TV? It seems to me like an easy way to avoid all the crapware that comes with Smart TVs.
It's hard to use a computer comfortably from the couch
The computer is a Raspberry Pi 4 running Kodi/LibreELEC. It works just dandy. I usually use CEC to control it, though sometimes I instead use a cheap Logitech K400 compact keyboard/trackpad combo. Both input methods are convenient (CEC even uses the regular TV remote), and both were plug-and-play.
It doesn't seem hard to use this computer from the couch at all, and it lets my dumb TV remain dumb while still accomplishing much of the functionality that I want from a video system that lives across the room from the sofa.
(And for everything else, there's Chromecast and friends.)