So I have a success story to contribute. Upgraded a friend’s X96 - S905x 1GB Ram to my goto android 7.1.2 Rom and then installed CE 19 nightly (21-06-15). CE installed just fine but wasn’t terribly stable.
I figured @Garcea was on to something and tried his ATVx recommendation. I re-flashed the original garbage X96 Android 6 rom, then flashed ATVxperience v4 (Android 9) (multi wifi driver version), and finally the above mentioned CE 19 nightly. Everything worked great with the exception of one of the USB ports not working. I Searched the forum and found this gem: Bqeel M9C Max - USB OTG port not working - #13 by Portisch
Voila! All USB ports work and another aged S905x happily runs CE 19 without any issues so far. 