The incentives are really not aligned here. Over time it's likely more features will be removed from or never added to CE. Gitlab provides only a very basic plugin system [1] so that nobody else can provide these basic features into CE. (Instead users are encouraged to contribute back to CE.) So, yes, the only option is "fork and fuck off." I don't predict a happy future for users of GitLab CE.

[1] https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/plugins.html