The version on the Play Store hasn't been updated since Dec 14, 2021 and it still works better than any other alternative imo. However, I am planning to stop using it when they eventually force us to update to the new version (which is the current beta they share through discord).
Comparing these two requires the number of cars with human drivers and the amount of time humans spend driving per year versus the number of autonomous vehicles and the amount of time they spend driving per year. I am not saying that you are wrong, I am just saying that comparing these numbers directly is like comparing apples with oranges.
Basically Corpos vs Nomads and Street Kids at this stage
Maybe a better option would be to limit the number of communities one can create (or become a mod of) in a limited amount of time? (e.g. you can create or be a mod of up to N communities in M hours/days) This would reduce the number of spam community creation cases and won't be over restrictive.
Also, anyone can spin up an instance and create any number of communities there, but I think that is a significantly different case than one creating 1000s of communities here. It requires more time spent by the spammer, and most likely some money, which would discourage at least some spammers.
Period can be removed with gmail emails. However, for +s, the whole part after + and before @ needs to be removed if removing+ as that part indicates the folder emails come to. Yet, the same issue would still remain for any Google Workspace emails as they also support + but doesnt end with gmail domain.
Getting roofcamped and then offlined
Recursion like this
Edit: forgot about federated instances being a thing