I read a post here a while back claiming that graphine is less private but somehow more secure. Of course the only person I have to ask is the graphine Matrix who claims are the opposite of this. Generally my main concern about Calyx is it's Fake google play thing. Apparently this is less private than graphineOS's sandboxed google play since it is still connecting to Google, and is just as privileged as Google play usually is.
Yeah the project has continued without him, And yeah running Google Apps is likely less private but considering I use proprietary apps like discord regularly I feel like Google and people are getting more and more of my data anyway.