I have the same experience, for me it works flawlessly with the bridge, but the bridge itself is a complication. I would prefer a straight imap option (in addition to the bridge option). My 2c.
I'm very happy with the Bridge integrated with Neomutt on Fedora Linux.
I think Protonmail started with a privacy-focused business case (for which E2EE is a key feature), but is now expanding into the broader pool of people who want to pay for an ad-free, no-data-scanning email, but are not concerned about targeted spying and prefer the simplicity of a convenient setup. For that crowd, IMAP would make more sense. My 2c.