It seems like the core things that Anki needs are new user experience improvements, and algorithm updates. SM2 really shows its age as compared to other algorithms.
For me really learning a word means:
(1) Knowing how to say it.
(2) Knowing how to write it, meaning the Chinese characters, of course.
(3) Still remembering (1) and (2) after at least a month.
(4) Being able to actually use the word correctly.
I don't bother with the Hanzi past being able to recognize them. I want to be able to talk to people and, if I have to, use a pinyin keyboard to write basic sentences.
So only 1 & 4 are really relevant, 2 is what Anki is designed to do.
Writing a language makes you more skilled at living in the modern world. It's not a threshold past which you must travel to count as a speaker of that language.
By cutting out the memorization of Hanzi, I am able to accelerate my actual goal of having conversations with people.
In Silicon Valley speak, I think the term would be "ruthless prioritization" .
Unless you're applying for something in China, you don't need to know how to write hanzi ever, except for very one-off instances like "I can write happy new year in Chinese"
You know how many times I've written "real" Japanese by hand since 2005? Zero. I've written my name and stuff, sometimes I'll write 愛 to show my daughters. Nothing else. Because it's a worthless skill unless you live in Japan. Not even visiting. You live there.
Of course I type all the time. But typing is speaking + reading. It's not writing. You type phonetically (i.e., you know how to say the word), and then you hit spacebar until the correct kanji comes up (i.e., you can read kanji).