I'm running big k8s cluster and my small ones at home for 8 years, never had an etcd issue.

Could you elaborate?

Having maintained multiple etcd clusters for self-managed kubernetes the last few years I disagree with the "problematic" characterization.

Sure it may not be the best fit in a scenario where you want a cluster spanned over the entire globe (thats why GKE uses paxos-based Spanner instead of it) , but even spanned across an entire continent (in europe via glass fiber) it works quite well for me. Its one of the least problematic parts of the stack.