Well, can you take a picture that looks better than what I made 20 years ago on a flip phone?
I have a pinephone and try it out year after year.. Well, let's just say that there is so many areas of improvement to make "GNU/linux" run on a mobile device (that sorta includes laptops as well, even though I have done so for years) that we might as well start over from statch.
For example one can't just let everything run whenever it wants, wasting battery life. Android's "more complicated" system and binder was criticized in this thread, but that's exactly what ties together the whole thing to be able to run on a device that fits in your hand, with centrally managed "let's pause this app now" etc
OV5640 will not get better just by aging. You should adjust your expectations.
I'm pretty sure these look significantly better than what 2006 flip phones were capable of, even after scaling down by Mastodon: https://social.librem.one/@dos/tagged/shotonlibrem5
Also, I'm perfectly capable of deciding whether I need an application to be running at a given moment myself, I don't need the OS to make dubious decisions for me.