Tried Brave last month ... Obscure working and non-tweakable top site page. Everyone complain about it for 1 year now, and it is still the same. Weird ads popping at the bottom of the screen , even more distracting than ads on a website. Ok I can let go of their weird ads system, but they should built it in a less invasive manner , if they want us to use it. Non tweakable utility bar, weird bookmark bar barely removable, they are far from going somewhere even remotely mass appealing And dependent on the google addon store.. Isnt that a no no if we want to get our adblock addons? Or any addon, that, in a near future, Google decide is evil and banned
Pi-hole is basically plug-and-play, users only need to change one or two router configs, but I suppose you're now going to complain about the cost and having to faff with another appliance hogging another one of those precious electrical sockets. EDIT: Seriously, though, putting your bellyaching aside, you can simply paste a pre-made host file into C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts. Just make sure it comes from a trustworthy place and be aware that you need to update it manually every once in a while.
You're right to the extent of how Brave/Opera/Vivaldi implemented their own blockers (I have no idea myself), but when we talk about codebase as large as Chromium's, it's very easy to miss things. Not even in a 'conspiracy' sense (e.g. something malicious stuck in a crucial binary blob inherited from Google, IIRC Chromium still has those despite their years of effort), just a simple, honest mistake. Frankly, I recommend Pi-hole/hostfiles regardless of browser. It just makes things easier in the long run.