Soooo, the camera app that comes by default has the nice feature of not recording metadata, so that's pretty cool. The google camera app (from what I hear) is better, but I haven't had any issues with the default app and I can't say I've noticed a difference. I'm not doing any fine photography or taking a lot of pictures though, I couldn't break down the finer details.

That's perfect! I think you could also side load the google pixel cam using gcam ports. You should give it a try. Should be of same quality with stock camera i think.