The Apocyrpha should not be considered scripture for at leastt some of the following reasons (there many reasons but here are five compelling ones):
1. Though there are a couple of allusions in the NT there is no direct quote from any of the Apocyrphal books.
2. Though the early church fathers are respected, that doesn’t mean their actions, opinions, or writings are inspired, plus not ALL the church fathers believed the Apocyrpha was inspired either - Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Origen, and Jerome all rejected the Apocyrpha as scripture.
3. During the 2nd Century AD the Alexandrian Jews adopted Aquila’s Greek version of the OT without apocryphal books.
4. As previously mentioned, Jesus and the New Testament writers never once quote the Apocrypha, although there are hundreds of quotes and references to almost the entire book of the Old Testament.
5. No canon or council of the Christian church recognized the Apocrypha as inspired for nearly four centuries.
Finally, why argue over these books? They have no direct influence or doctrinal relevance to the Christian faith. Other than for some possible historical interest, such as in the books of Maccabees, what relevance do any of these books have on the Gospel? If they never existed - what effect would that have on the Gospel? Nothing at all. If you remove Isaiah or the Psalms THAT WOULD affect the New Testament and the Gopsel. Let these irrelevant books go.
I will following your numbering:
1. direct quotes have never been a criteria for canonicity. these books were not “hidden”, therefore calling them Apocrypha is inaccurate. quite the contrary, they were in the Greek OT used by Paul and the Church from day one.
did Paul ever warn the Church these books were not Scripture?
2. some Church Fathers expressed doubt, but the large majority did not. Jerome included them in the Latin Vulgate despite his doubts. He did not substitute his personal judgement for the Holy Spirit working thru the Church.
3. Christians don’t look to non Christians for truth. truth comes from the Holy Spirit guiding the Church.
4. same answer as #1
5. this is the same specious thinking that leads Jehovah Witnesses to say no Church council proclaimed the divinity of Jesus for 300 years, so up until then, no one believed Jesus was divine. WRONG! Church councils convened to resolve some dispute or controversy, such as circumcision in the 1st century. The Catholic Church had always read these books at Mass and they teach the Apostolic Faith, therefore they met the two part test for Scripture. when the Council of Carthage in 397 gave us the complete canon of Scripture, where was the opposition? where were the “protestants” to oppose these 7 books? there was universal acceptance of the canon by both the Latins and Greeks in the Catholic Church. don’t you think the author of the scriptures, the Holy Spirit would also protect the true canon?
finally, why argue over these books? same reason if someone said that Revelation or Philemon are not canonical. No doctrine of the Church would change if these books were dropped from the canon, but it would be wrong not to have the full scriptures inspired by the Holy Spirit in the Bible.
the other reason of course is we are commanded to be “one”, and those outside of the historical Christian Faith violate this command by attacking the Church over the Scriptures.