One thing that really worries me is if the firmware can be accepted into linux-firmware this way ("extracted from array in vendor driver files marked as GPL-2"), and if the driver could be accepted upstream (later, when it supports at least station mode) if not. Reading the README of the linux-firmware repository gives me doubts at least.
Does anyone know how that works? Or even better, has a contact at #Realtek who could see about getting the firmware released directly? Or at least at #Pine64 or some other Realtek customer who could poke them?