I love the balance between simplicity and utility. Ability to download podcasts for later, queue them up into a playlist, cast to a device, easily search through thousands of existing podcasts but able to add the RSS if needed, timeline for recent podcast episodes, etc

Yepp. Google Podcasts hit the right spot in terms of auto playing my next podcast that I don't have with other apps I've used. Managing all podcasts across devices made switching phones seamless. I'll actually miss it.

But I've wanted to switch to a more open option so I'll have to figure those things out elsewhere.

Same here, I switched from apple podcasts after their home re-organization that ruined the experience for me. Guess I should have known better.

Try Pocket Casts, that’s where I went from Apple Podcasts and haven’t looked back.

Same here, now will either have to find something similar, or go back to downloading MP3 from RSS feeds.