The thing you missed to search for Nyquist limit as applies to the triad of battery power use vs data speed vs range. There's also error rate in the equation...
You can more or less only communicate with people agreeing with one specific tradeoff and the majority have spoken and they want slow long range texting, so you'll only be compatible with their mesh if you're compatible with that use case.
The software works fine if you set up super high bit rate, although you will not like the short range. There is no such thing as a free lunch and something like Y2K wifi speeds will have Y2K wifi ranges and battery use LOL. Also you will not mesh with other people's infrastructure if you intentionally use a modulation scheme they don't use. Its quite capable, really. But if most people want to max out their possible range and secondarily max out their battery life, it isn't going to be very fast...
