If shorts were simply a separate section of YouTube with all of its functionality, then that's understandable. But as they stand, shorts are just YouTube with both reduced functionality (forced vertical aspect ratio, no seek bar, time limit) AND all of the existing flaws (bad recommendation algorithm, reposted content, etc. )
Unless you are some kind of tech contrarian hipster, I don't think there is one thing that YouTube shorts does better than TikTok, or heck, Instagram Reels.
Nope, official app has a seek bar on the bottom (I was using vanced before but had to reset my password which reset the login cookie and I am not trying to delete my downloads of years by trying to sign back in)
P.S. I have too many downloads, so if anyone has a method to extract them, I'll be thankful.