I grew tired of fighting hugo. Now this website is built using a very simple build.lua file. It is messy, but it works and I understand every line of it.
Rather than use markdown, I now use djot. It is wonderful. You should give it a try.
It's an order of magnitude slower, but in the end it doesn't matter too much. I have a few ideas on how to make it faster if I really need it.
I don't rely on a git-push-deploy workflow anymore. Rather I use wrangler-cli locally to push. This makes deploys much easier, and I can publish drafts in seconds.