That doesn’t help with the nightmare scenario of Google’s systems deciding I’m a threat because I never post YouTube comments or something, and shutting off the account. That’s the thing I’m worried about.

Yeah, that's why you need your own domain and a proper mail provider

Don't worry, Google is working on that.

The demise of email forwarding is getting closer

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40045069