I’ve had a usb to sata running to a 2.5" add that acts as the main storage and boot for my pi4b, and it’s been in use for 4 years with zero issues so far.

I’ve now got 3HDDs attached to my Proxmox machine for NAS storage via usb ATM. It’s been running since Feb. It’s had it’s issues but those were more my fault for not understanding the flake factor (since my experience with the sdd) I had one drive forget what I named it, so my whole Proxmox died.

But that was remedied by passing the USB straight through to OMV.

Just saying, I’ve not really had the same experience as you with them, they seem fine if you have an idea what may fuck up.