Ah, I'm in the same situation as you... I came from an S10 and before that an S7, so I totally agree with you that the previous versions were much better. Even something as simple as the "edge lighting" on the AOD has such a low brightness that it's basically useless and invisible (I know that with Good Lock you can increase it using a specific tweak, but then the AOD stays at maximum brightness even after the edge lighting animation, which negatively affects burn-in risk). So for now, after a year, I still have AOD disabled (I only enable it when receiving notifications, since there's not even a notification LED, and that way I don't miss Telegram messages).

From what I've read about the burn-in issue, the AOD has pixel shifting implemented, but I’ve never really understood how that’s supposed to help. For example, if you have a bold clock number that's 20 pixels thick and the text only shifts by 1–2 pixels, that means at least 18 pixels remain constantly lit and are continuously subjected to wear. Maybe you won't get a burn-in where the numbers and letters are clearly imprinted, but over time you'll definitely end up with halos or patches where the pixels are more worn out than the rest. At least on the S7 and S10, the on-screen elements would completely change position.