Good idea with artificially tripping the cells inbuilt protection. I’ll need to study the circuits and micro controllers to see if that’s a practical way of doing it.
I already ordered a faraday bag yesterday. Going to put it to the test when I get it. This is my best option for the time being until I can get a device with a hardware kill switch.
look at dns66 for hosts functionality without root.
can be found on fdroid.
going to put lineageos on a note 9 soon.
I ran CyanogenMod then LineageOS on my 1+1 but gave up on Lineage due to the censorship and attitude of the devs and mods on the forum and subjects not allowed on the forum. No feature requests for one. Currently using Havoc rooted with magisk and swift black substratum theme on my current 1+6.
I’ve read but cannot confirm that recent versions of AdAway have added a non-root VPN mode similar to Blokada. Of course if you have root then you can just use it to modify the HOSTS file as usual.
As for root and custom ROMs I do root my phone’s but I don’t run custom ROMs. I like root for being able to backup apps and their data. It is very handy for apps that don’t have their own backup solution. Also it makes restoring my phone a bit faster since I don’t need to waste time redownloading all my apps.
Now my reason for not using custom ROMs is as follows.
1. My current phone isn’t very popular for ROMs. I have a Pixel 2 and LineageOS only recently released official builds for it. Many custom ROMs have a limited number of devices they support so I find myself with slim pickings.
2. I find custom ROMs seem to have less and less exciting features with each new version of Android. I am fairly content with Google’s vanilla version of Android.
3. Whenever a new Android OS version is released, I am left waiting months waiting for the custom ROMs to switch to the new version. And once available, we are that much closer to the next Android version and the cycle repeats.
I always carefully pick what is going to be my next smartphone. I never buy a smartphone who was launched very recently, this way I can read plenty of reviews and also check the availability of custom ROMs at XDA Forums.
Not buying the latest also allows me to buy a high end smartphone for affordable price. Also, high end mobile SoCs are more powerful than mid range stuff even if a couple generations older, as far as I know.
Seriously? In my experience, a good custom ROM surpasses anything stock. They are meant to be this way.
For example, my AEX ROM features things like an amazing task switcher, without the need to install any other software:
Comparatively speaking, task switchers like the one which first appeared in Android Lollipop suck big time, imho.
So do you need to be on the latest version? I don't. I'm still on Android 8.1, works great. No hurry. 
Old and bad are different things. A new version is not always better, I've seen quite a few new versions of whatever software turn into downgraded crap. It's me who decides when to upgrade, to the point of uninstalling certain applications because they upgraded themselves just because fLIck thee.
I have Lineage and don’t intend to ever switch to closed source OS. From my experience they tend to be riddled with things that are features for the manufacturers but misfeatures for the users.
I used to root my phones & load the latest ROM from CyanogenMod then LineageOS etc but as I got older I got a bit lazy & now just have a Motorola phone, which has a pretty stock version of Android 10 with only one or two Motorola Apps & does all I need.
Motorola will probably never push out Android 11 to my phone (G8 plus) but 10 seems to be OK & I’m happy with it.
I have rooted every phone I owned until this one (OnePlus 8T). I will not purchase a phone from the carrier or any phone which cannot be unlocked and modded.
My new phone (for a couple of weeks now) is pretty excellent out of the box, so I am trying out root alternative methods to get what I want from it. Most of what I want is available without root, and it doesn’t break Widevine so I can watch videos in “Full HD”. I may root it eventually if I run across anything that I can’t live without, but OTA updates are frequent from OnePlus and they keep it pretty clean.
When I do root, I am a big fan of Magisk. Practicing the principle of least privilege, I only grant root to apps I trust and only when they need it (not full time). Magisk hides from the “Karen” apps that like to complain, so typically no real issues there.
Custom ROMs can be cool, but as of my OnePlus 6T I have been pretty happy with the stock Oxygen OS (very slightly tweaked Android). Previously I used Lineage, Resurrection Remix, or even AOSP depending on the day (these days it is really easy to download a new one and flash on the go with TWRP or whatever).
Never tried to go completely Google free. They are going to track me everywhere anyway, so I just do what I can to limit the really invasive stuff.
I rooted all my phones up to the galaxy S5. When I replace that with an S7 I found I really didnt need to, although I kinda wanted to.
I main reasons for rooting:
Backup data to sd (Titanium Backup required it)
move all apps to sd (some could move, but early OS didnt allow much)
get rid of bloatware/apps I didnt want
ran better
If I didn’t move stuff to the SD I kept hitting memory limits.
By the time the S7 came out, they added more memory to the phone, and a “built in” sd card that acted as additional memory
Now I have a S10, I can move everything to SD w/o root, no issues with running out of memory.
That said, I don’t use my phone as a camera to document my life like some people, but I’m old.
I heard someone say that you can tell how old someone is by how far away their cell phone is from them when they are at home.
Mines 3 rooms away some times. I still have a land line.
I do too and since I plan to root, I get Pixels since I know they can be bootloader unlocked even when new.
That is pretty cool I must admit.
I need it as much as I need a new flashlight 
While I could use all my apps on Android 9, 8, 7, or whatever, I enjoy having the latest version. It is another reason I like Pixel phones, I get updates to the latest Android and I get them rather quickly.