iOS 15.1 remove home screen bottom blurred bar and other basic features missing

I see that Apple is not being pressured enough about the extremely low customizability of iOS home screen. There are few features Android has since like 2005 that Apple has yet to adapt. I recently purchased my first Apple device to give it a try. There are so many inconvenient things that I am not happy about. The most disappointing feature so far is that there is a blurred bar at the bottom of the screen that can't be removed. It covers decent size of the screen and makes the screen look even smaller (It's iPhone SE 2020 model). Can someone explain how this passed quality assurance? Who thought that it's a great idea to cut a portion of the screen wallpaper so the screen would look even smaller. My wallpaper options just got limited by 90% because they don't look good cropped from standard 16:9 to god knows what aspect ratio.

That aside, icons can not be moved and they auto align. That leads to even more screen cover and makes the screen look more like 4:3 and further limits choice of a wallpaper. How come a mere sub 200€ android phone has significantly more customization options that a 600€ iPhone???