F-Droid probably won’t accept any builds with adware/tracking in them, so probably we’ll just stay on an old version until a fork or alternative comes along. There’s also a toggle on my preferred F-Droid manager app (droid-ify) to ignore new versions
Wouldn’t say it’s impossible. I’ve done it pretty often at work (tech support) and at home with sim eject tools, pointy tweezers, knitting needles etc. 5 minutes of patience and the port is like new. Just need to avoid the centre where the contacts are.