TRInvictus When I add a row/column to the home screen, or to the dock, for example, the complete home screen is reset and messed up.
Hmm, you're right. I made a back-up before trying to add a new row, and every icon and widget that I had set up all got pushed and squished to the top, instead of an empty row getting added to the bottom with the icon and widget placements intact.
I suppose the best way would be to first predetermine your grid size, and then create your desired home screen setup based on the set grid size. This seems like a Lawnchair issue, rather than a Pixel/GOS issue.
May I kindly ask which device you're running GOS on?
I'm on a regular Pixel 8.
What shall I do? Reset, re-flash the phone? Loosing everything I set up carefully, with zero guarantee for success?
What you're going through sounds like a major pain, I'm sorry you're going through that. One thing I suggest you try is to create a new user profile, which will essentially create a fresh install of GOS on a different "partition", without impacting your existing data.
See if the same issue happens on the other user profile, on the stock launcher, without you making any changes. If it does, then something is definitely wrong with your install of GOS (although unlikely), and you should try re-flashing GOS from scratch after a factory reset.
If not, then somehow & somewhere, some crucial UI setting must have been misconfigured while you were setting up your device, so a factory reset alone should be fine.