I use something similar - text is the way to go for sure. I’ve lost a lot of data to proprietary formats over the years, and nothing beats the power of text when you are in a familiar editor.
I use NeoVim, which is basically Vim, with a taskpaper mode that keeps the same kind of outline as org-mode. I would like to rewrite it into markdown so it would print nicely. Each project has its own list so I can pick up where I was pulled away. I tacked a bunch of macros and color schemes onto this ancient vim module.
To manage the lists, I wrote a Perl script to pull the done items down to an Archive group at the end, and move active items into their priority groupings. I just invoke it from a macro in Vim. My script and groupings have worked well for me this way since 2008, but they are idiosyncratic, based on GTD, and I wouldn’t assume they are useful to others.
The script is essential to keep the list sorted and uncrufted; I imagine the same could be done for org-mode. You can probably find a better language than Perl; Python would be good. Julia would be more fun, but would have a JIT wait everytime you ran it.
I really wish I’d had this when I was in grad school and starting companies; ironically it was available to me, but I was too busy with fancy things.