Silly question but why is the Pi necessary? Isn't this a Linux project, or actually a C++ project? My guess is it's because device names are a -mess- between Linux (etc) devices (starting with, the same device has different names ex /dev, lsusb, alsa|pulse|pipewire list devices; multiple layers of indirection does not make for a great casual experience), and this simplifies the mess to one well-known device to make it less of a hair-pulling exercise. Which is telling, because Pi is sold as a learning kit, and it takes away this most unhelpful level of knowledge.

I guess looking for a meta project where the driver was a specification, 'stereo-96+khz-active' (that survived reboots/hot plugging) would just create one more meta project? Like https://editorconfig.org/. But maybe its about time, cause "Linux" and even "open source" loses a lot of value when getting something running is 90% arbitrary yak-shaving, where people need deep magic to get audio working the way they like. I mean, you have to be a 90s-2020s cruft (no other word for it) expert to play with supposedly user friendly software.