For my dream version, I'd want an inverse design to the typical "speed dial" which usually clusters a bunch of fat icons in the middle. I'd rather have my pretty little custom image (perhaps slideshow) visible in the middle, with all the icons around the edges, smaller, much like my desktop. The search bar would go across the bottom but above any bookmark icons or folders at the bottom. Remember widgets? I want some of those back, or something like Rainlendar/Rainmeter. I can't even get a working clock as one of the "speed dial"s, or a date. And the only weather "speed dial" that works only shows the current temperature and a cloud.

My advice to you: migrate to Brave. It handles countless open browsers far better than any browser I've experienced thus far. I still have a lot of issues with Sidewise, but after you get used to it and try not to keep too many active (they can be hibernated, and I have thousands hibernated and presently I've got a smallish number of about 50 tabs active). Sidewise is not the ideal vertical tabs manager and if you happen to push it too far it may crash but after a couple times you learn what not to do and I've stayed with it longer than most. I miss Vivaldi and Firefox but they choked.

I think most if not all those great suspender things are covered in Brave, which is why I suspect it works so well.