It’s not implemented and there is no ETA but there is plan about having bottom navigation. It would make switching between screens quicker.
Hope counters from sidebar would be showing on corresponding items for bottom navigation. Especially for inbox.
I am the same as you but even though I think homescreen is nice it is too limited for me. For one you can’t switch horizontal list to vertical and for second you can’t set number of items to show.
Maybe turning on for your favorites podcasts episodes notification could alleviate the need to go to inbox (edited : not queue). That’s what I do.