I'm pretty sure Youtube knows that people who did one of the things you mentioned get fed up with their crappy recommendations and enable the recommendations, just to be 'fed' with new content. Which in turn is great for their monetization strategy.

It would be nice if Youtube offered a feature where the recommended lists are completely removed and youtube simple loads as a search bar. Where you find what you are looking for without distractions.

I've done this myself by adding the following rules to ublockorigin:

www.youtube.com##ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer.style-scope.ytd-watch-flexy

www.youtube.com###comments.ytd-watch-flexy.style-scope

www.youtube.com##ytd-browse.ytd-page-manager.style-scope[page-subtype="home"]

www.youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer

www.youtube.com##ytd-vertical-channel-section-renderer