FWIW, I personally think Henke is correct to state that creating "...a product based on XMPP+OMEMO that, exactly like Signal, can only communicate with other Signal users and always has encryption on." would largely address most of the critiques (or at least the ones that bother me most), but that Soatok is also correct in concluding that the XMPP ecosystem and the way OMEMO is used in clients today does not meet their definition of "Signal competitor"[0], which I think is still a useful way to frame things.
[0] https://soatok.blog/2024/07/31/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-sig...