Agreed and all good questions to ask (VPN generally just moves the problem). The assumption is the Tor network is compromised isn't one I'd disagree with, though I suspect it is more costly for them to spy on that traffic.

At this point I feel like there are hundreds of backdoors on my machine. Everything from the OS packaging system to the BIOS to the drivers to the hardware peripherals to the libs to the editors to the shell. I can really only protect myself from people at my general skill level.

I do think that layering equipment/software across nation state origins probably provides the best security. FVEY OS running Chinese hardware behind Russian router or something to that effect.