Well, one thing I will say is that I don’t fit the image of “embittered ex-Catholic,” and I’ve certainly known a few.
However, sola fide, sola scriptura just makes more sense to me. Normally, nearly all my reading is about history, but I’ve been dipping into theology in recent years. In the process I discovered that my most firmly held religious beliefs were more closely aligned with confessional Lutheranism than the faith I was raised in.
Again, that doesn’t make me an angry lapsed Catholic. It’s just that I’m more comfortable with justification by faith alone, believing that justification by faith and works can lead us astray into attitudes like the smug Pharisee in Luke 18. This is so much my favorite of Jesus’ parables that it’s at times almost like an obsession.
In other words “don’t be like that Pharisee” — a powerful lesson for an era of narcissism and virtue signaling.
Another Catholic doctrine from which I feel liberated is purgatory, which is just screamingly unbiblical. There are others.
What "Hell" do you think Christ descended into after His Crucifixion on Good Friday?