I am registered with both, but that kind of defeats the point of being federated, right? Certainly, it works for now as a stop-gap solution. (I do of course appreciate how early in development everything is). It would be interesting to know if there is appetite for that as a feature.

It's completely different to Nova, and any other drawer based launcher. It has a free version so you can check it out. Personally, I don't like it but I totally get the appeal.

Nova was recently bought out by an ad company, so if that's not something you like then you might check out some FOSS alternatives such as Lawnchair or Neo Launcher (both are currently in development and less feature-rich than Nova though).