Yes

Yes. It works with sandboxed play services. I was doing that for a while in the work profile. Running all that is just to much for my Pixel 4A 5G.

Besides the look/layout, I liked how it kept track of credit card statement dates.

Does anyone have any other recommendations to compare?

Before i switched to GrapheneOS i was using:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.realbyteapps.moneymanagerfree

I really miss that app but haven’t found anything even close.

MX has its own built in tool to make a bootable USB with persistence

Port authority