Lightning just isn't a good option as you first have to pay the expensive Bitcoin fees just to be able to use it... (And hope that you'll find a route otherwise you'll have to do it again.)
If $0.27 is an expensive fee then I don't have any answers to that.
Yeah routing can suck. First timers should use a lightning wallet with built in LSP support like ZEUS, BitKit, Phoenix, etc. Then routing is a non-issue.
People regularly overpay, so I'm not sure looking at average fees it the right lens. Monero is great, but it's trivial to get an excellent user experience with lightning nowadays that doesn't require custodians.
The reason people overpay is that it's impossible to foresee what fee will get you into the next block, so they overpay to not get stuck potentially for hours or more.
Not requiring custodians is just one part, having to rely on third-party services for basic functionality is another.
edit: on desktop, on the page where you choose your plan, scroll to the bottom and look for the link to paying with OpenNode (btc lightning)