Yeah, I looked at the TomTom GPS units as a possible alternative.
I managed to buy a subscription to Sygic on another android device I have that is connected to the playstore (while logged into Sygic via my e-mail) and that seems to be working well. Yes, they may be logging my data but it's not Google. Will try it and see.
I've had network access restricted on Gmaps for more than 3 weeks now and the map I downloaded is still working so maybe the downloads last longer than 2 weeks that someone else reported?
As for Waze, I had considered it but won't use it because it doesn't function offline and Google isn't getting my mapping data.