I agreed with you for a long time before I had some.
When I got an S22 which had no headphone jack I was pretty frustrated, but I did eventually give in when I had the need for some earbuds and buy some Bose QuietComfort wireless earbuds almost 2 years ago.
They are so amazing, one of my favorite purchases in a long time. They literally never have fallen out because they're well designed and fit me perfectly. The noise cancelling is excellent. The sound quality is the best I've had in earbuds, although of course it's not better than my Sennheiser wired headphones I use at my PC.
I'm really impressed at the battery life as well, I never wear them for more than a couple of hours but they've never died on me from a full charge. The case holds several charges.
The biggest issues with them are definitely exclusive to wireless earbuds, problems I never had with a wired pair. One is the size of the case, it's a lot less pocketable than other brands. Also, only the right earbud directly communicates with the audio source. This means that if you want to wear only the left one, the right one still has to be connected. Both of these issues are resolved with the second generation QuietComfort earbuds.
Airpods, on the other hand, are so inconsistent and seem to be riddled with issues. The only reasons I'd recommend them to someone is for their transparency mode and the seamless connectivity with Apple products. Other products will definitely have transparency mode of the same quality eventually. At my work we are an Apple Authorized Service Provider and we deal with Airpods issues all the time. A lot of the issues are caused by neglect and user error, but I can't ignore the huge amount of them that come in with audio crackling, volume issues, connectivity issues, etc. The only saving grace is that you can get them replaced under manufacturer warranty or AppleCare quite easily.
All that being said, I'd be reluctant to go back to wearing wired earbuds for regular use, I hate having to untangle them. I fully understand your stance because I felt the exact same way a few years ago, and if you're purely concerned about sound quality wired is still the way to go. But, once you find a pair of true wireless buds that work for you, they're a pretty amazing innovation. Just be glad that many manufacturers are still making wired earbuds as well, they don't seem to be going anywhere and there are some excellent choices on the market that far exceed the sound quality of any wireless option.