Back to Graphene? (2022 vs 2020)

Ok so the first thing you should do to clear things up is go to the website and read the "Features" and "Usage" pages. There are so many information you will want. If you end up installing GOS (and I'm pretty sure you will), you'll want to read the FAQ page too. Most if not all of what I wrote below can be found there.
Now to answer your questions, Google Play features are split up in 3 apps that you can install on GrapheneOS. Understand that, unlike in Calyx with their MicroG approach, these three apps aren't custom software ; these apps are the official google apps that any stock distribution install and run. The difference (an why we call it "sandboxed") is that instead of baking it into the OS with privileged access like it is done everywhere else, there is a compatibility layer allowing them to run as normal apps without crashing. This allows users to choose whether to install them or not and use the same permissions you already use with other apps to choose what they can access.

What are these three apps and the usability implications ?

• Google Services Framework : as the name implied, this app is just a framework and does nothing on it's own. It's sort of a way for google to centralize code shared across apps. This has no privacy implication and this is the only app you need to run google maps. So to answer your question, yes you can have google maps on GOS and you don't even need Google Play/Services
• Google Play Services : This is what implements most of the Google play features and what people usually refer to when they say an app needs Google Play. Notably, it implements push notifications and location services. By default, you don't need it for location services though because GOS redirects these calls to the OS location service relying on GPS. GP Services doesn't really work without Google Play however because the app needs to be activated and the recommended way is to install Google Play, open it and click on the "Sign in" button (which doesn't sign you in but simply open the sign in page, you can then stop there without signing up with your gmail account). You can then uninstall Google Play if you don't need it. Once again, look up the website for more information on how to make sure everything works properly (like push notifications which have issues out of the box)
• Google Play : the actual store. You need the above apps to install it so if you want the full suite just go to the "Apps" app and tap install on google play ; it will then install all three for you. However, remember when I wrote above that GP Services implements most of the features ? Well the remaining ones are implemented in Google Play itself. These are the features related to the store like verifying paid apps, subscriptions and micro payments. So to answer another one of your questions, yes you can use subscription apps if you install Google Play and sign in with an account.

As for speech to text, I don't use it and I don't really know but I believe it's currently impossible. Maybe someone else can comment on this. Text to speech is possible though.
As for techlore, I'm not going to comment further but know that he isn't welcome nor appreciated here.

Welteam

Aside from Google Recorder as Hulk mentioned in this thread, you can get Voice to Text to work with G-Board and the Sandboxed Google Services Framework installed. I used the instructions posted in this thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/278-voice-to-text

To do so, I:

• Installed the 3 apk packages for Sandboxed Google Services Framework

• Initiated the Google Play Store by clicking Sign In (I didn't sign in)

• Removed all permissions including network for the 3 packages

• I installed G-Board with Aurora Store, removed most permissions except Network, and selected the Faster Voice Typing in settings

• Waited a 10 minutes for the language files to download then removed the Network permission

Now I can use voice typing on my phone and it works perfectly.