Different systems work work for different people. You can find a lot of discussions in the forum about what alternatives might be.
As far as your specific questions:
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As @jkp said, you can still do this, it’s just really hard to find it in the app until somebody has shown you the examples. So see the link he gave.
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Many people have reported that presence is not working well for them in the current version of the app. There are lots of threads about it. It’s not clear why it does work for some people and not for others, it may depend on the specific phone, the OS, something else we’re not aware of. But you’re not alone in this and it’s not clear what the workarounds are.
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This issue, of having “home“ be a value for two different variables (Security and Geopresence) was actually introduced before the new V3 app was. And it’s been confusing people for a long time. It was part of the old smart home monitor, and then it was part of the new SmartThings home monitor for the first two years.
There’s a community FAQ about this which is from the old version of the app. You’ll see the question was first asked back in 2016, so it’s not a new issue.
FAQ: Armed/Disarmed states vs Away/Home modes confusion
However, as @orangebucket mentioned, sometime in the last six months they actually improved this in some languages, although I don’t think it’s been fully globalized yet. But at least now in the US version and the UK version of the app, the values for smartthings home Monitor have been changed to be “Disarmed” instead of “Home.”
As far as suggestions, there are a lot of home automation systems out there, each has pluses and minuses, and, again, different things work for different people. Openhab is a good choice for a lot of people with a strong technical background. Xioami Aqara might be a better choice for someone just looking for a simple system with a nice app. And smart things (with the new Aeotec hub) might still be the best choice for a lot of people. There’s good discussion in the following section of the forum: