I thought the same way when I began my home automation journey years ago. But after learning the hard way using so many alternatives and variations of zwave and zigbee buttons to get it easier for the wife to use the system, I finally bit the bullet and got the Lutron Caesta SmartBridge Pro and 9 Lutron Pico's and the wife has never been more happy about it. The price of that Pro hub was worth it after seeing a happy wife. I started with 5 Pico's but they worked so well I ended up getting 4 more for more use cases. I still haven't replaced batteries on any of the Pico's from many many years ago and the setup is rock solid reliable in Hubitat.
I ended up in this thread because I was searching to see if anyone had recommendations for a Zigbee 4 Button switch that can do zigbee bindings so if the hub goes down for any reason the switch can still operate the Zigbee devices directly.
