It's only explosive when mixed with air in confined places, as is gasoline, LPG, CNG, steel, wood and flour. Unlike most others, confinement is a requirement, otherwise it escapes too quickly. See [1] for comparison.
> hard to store safely, damages its own holding vessels
For these reasons I suggest we should produce and store methane, though hydrogen issues aren't a showstopper and hydrogen fuel cells are more efficient.
[1] https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2017/03/17/so-just-how-dangerous-is...
As an example, many garages ban LPG cars, but don't care about CNG, AFAICT, because LPG can pool around on the bottom, but methane is light and easily escapes. Hydrogen is even lighter and harder to contain.
The link [1] has compelling arguments.
For many industrial processes, ammonia is a well-established common feedstock, having none of the issues of hydrogen you mention.
Here in Japan, some Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants are already running with 10% ammonia blend.
I think you are right about pure hydrogen, but I can see green-hydrogen-into-ammonia as viable for many applications including heavy transportation (train, ship, truck).
We just need much more economic electrolysis, because hydrogen is almost always produced from fossil fuels today.
Plus you could easily replace it with solar produced methanol overtime.
EV however killed the need for that for the most part.
Today I don't really think synfuels have much of a application. Batteries and storing energy electrically will win. It will not be so long until you can basically do Iron-Silicon battery for a very cheap price. Or if we finally figure Sulfer we could have amazing batteries for super cheap.
It's far easier to store it (underground, as compressed gas; this is a demonstrated technology) than it is to store energy in batteries. The cost/energy capacity can be extremely low, ~ $1/kWh equivalent.
Long term storage of hydrogen is quite easy so. It can be stored in thermal oil, rendering it inert. In thay form it isn't even considered dangerous goods for transportation anymore.
Source: I consulted a green hydrogen project on logistics a while ago.