Like you, I was a fairly early Alexa adopter... I had the first gen tower and the earliest dot I had was a second gen. I just bought a new Bridge I have yet to install... I need to look up how to copy the info off the old one and see if the newest one does any better connecting with Homekit... I just got it last week, and heaven't had time to dig into it just yet. If you have any input on copying and transferring all the bridge settings that'd be nice... I have four routers to work with so connecting them at the same time is no problem... but I can't recall all the details of running either separate bridges, or copying and installing all the files onto the new one...
But I do remember there was a TON of food joint apps on the Echos early on. Now that things are more sorted out it seems like they'd be getting back on the wagon.