that's completely acceptable. i like when apps integrate with my Monet color theming and I've never had issues loading video after i turned off the Piped proxy, basically just turning it into NewPipe with a different look. In my experience, don't turn that on unless you have a specific reason to. It leads to video loading issues just like you found.

Some things I like about LibreTube:

The PiP functionally works better than in Newpipe
I can see the likes and dislikes of comments and expand the thread to see more comments
Swipe gestures to enter and exit fullscreen just like on the normal YT app
I can view a content creators content by Livestream, Short, normal video etc. for some reason shorts just don't show up in Newpipe
SponsorBlock integrated. I am aware there is Newpipe x SponsorBlock

If NewPipe has a way to add the above functionality, I'll gladly try it again!