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i don't think it's really "far behind", it just can't run on hardwares that require manufacturer keys (e.g. intel bootguard)

afaik all modern x86 chromebooks ship with coreboot based firmware

Last time I bought a chromebook it was horribly locked down, I couldn't even install my own OS. Has that changed?

Not at all. If you're lucky you can (after some fiddling) install a real coreboot, this site is incredibly helpful for that: https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/getting-started.html