It is expected, it is already in the betas but may also require carriers to enable it as some beta testers found it wasn’t available to them initially.
To be additionally fair, Android still has phones out there in use that still dont have the RCS feature, and never will because those phones are no longer supported.
With a 5 year support cycle on iOS devices getting OS updates, ALL of the iPhones going back to 2019 (when it was added to android) will likely support RCS
This is true, Google has cared less about the hardware and more about being the platform to run all of it. Not all that different than Android in that regard.
I’m still not sure why people are so quick to jump on board though. You can degoogle Android, it’s much harder to degoogle RCS.
RCS from what I can tell still has some significant limitations, like the version common on Android having some Google proprietary extensions it's not clear if other vendors will fully support. I'd still recommend something like Signal to most people, though RCS improves the experience for those not using that.