> The losses on battery life are far too high to accept,

Why do people keep saying this? I have been on M1 Air on Asahi for the last 4 weeks, getting 8-10 hours daily. I see my wattage consumption on screen at all times, it varies between 2.5-3W when scrolling web and around 5W when actively working with apps. I see no difference between macOS and Linux! The only difference is the s2idle consumption but personally I don't care, besides all other modern Linux laptops have same exact issue, often worse.

On my Intel T14s 4th Gen I was getting maybe 5 hours, and that's already with heavily optimized setup!