I'm currently using an old iPhone, but my plan once it finally dies is to buy a pixel phone and immediately wipe it and install Graphene. It seems really weird to buy a google device if I want better privacy, but based on the research I've done it really does seem like the best option if you value privacy, are willing to deal with a little bit of pain to get privacy, but also need a phone that can at least sometimes do things like run banking apps that force you into the panopticon of bullshit.

I know you specifically said pre-de-googled, but as you said it seems like the options there are really bad, but graphene does seem to make it pretty easy to install (although I haven't actually tried it yet).