Problems with Microsoft 365 homepage

The Microsoft 365 homepage was actually fairly useful, in that it presented a list of recently used files, a few actions, and access to the online version of the applications in one place. I used it as a quick entry to Outlook on the web, or to edit a file when on Linux or iOS. It has been redone, with the homepage shilling Copilot chat…whatever. The problem I am having is that it seems very hit or miss when I select the application that I want, that it will remember my account, even though I am logged in to the homepage and can get to my account information from there. Often it will not even launch the app, especially the top three (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). On top of that, it will not accept my Windows Hello PIN. Tried with both Brave and Edge on Linux and Windows with consistently inconsistent results.

Is anyone else seeing this issue? Any suggested workarounds? This really makes it feel like they have the JV or maybe even the Freshman team working on this, and I would think it is a fairly important product. Death by 1000 cuts.