Thanks for the clarification. I hear you, but I disagree.
All it takes is the people I do follow/have developed friendships with to start reposting, quoting participating in all of the other behavior that I dislike so much in order for myself to be exposed to it, no matter the client or relay, unless the people I follow becomes a hard whitelist.
A whitelist severely disables much of the benefits of social media and reduces it to a type of chat app. Which brings us back to "the other functions" as the only real value (for me) under those conditions.