I understand there are ongoing discussions about the future of AnnData.
I have just released alpha versions of GitHub - tanaylab/DataAxesFormats.jl: Data in Axes in Formats and dafpy · PyPI - R wrappers are WIP.
This takes a different approach to overcoming the limitations of AnnData. I use Muon to import/export AnnData objects to interoperate with current computational pipelines.
I’d be happy to discuss if we can align the efforts.