I’d also like to see more consistency across the various camera model UIs, and I’ve said so before on the Forum. I’ve also gotten the impression from reading various topics here that there are people who strongly prefer the “old” UI (which apparently has a horizontally-scrolling timeline for microSD card recordings), whereas my oldest Wyze camera model is a Cam Pan v3, so all of my cameras have the “new” UI with the vertical scroll, so I’m already used to that. 
There are little inconsistencies that seem to be subject to change for no apparent reason, though, like the way Cam Pan v3 and Cam v4 used to use an “expand” icon for full-screen mode, but then Cam v4’s interface seemed to change to be more like Cam OG’s, where it’s a “screen rotate” icon instead (and then Picture-in-Picture appeared).
They’re fairly easy changes to adapt to, but it does give the impression that the app was cobbled together from disparate modules instead of being conceived as a unified whole. (The piecemeal implementation of “dark mode” doesn’t help.)
I see both Take Photo and Record buttons for Cam v4, both when I’m looking at the Live Stream and when I’m viewing playback from microSD. Note that if you’re viewing the Cam v4 stream (either live or playback) in full-screen/landscape mode, you’ll need to tap the vertical ellipsis (⋮) to activate the More menu in order to see those buttons. Where is it that you expect to see them but are not?
As far as the UI on the Favorites tab goes, your suggestions seem like candidates for this Wishlist topic: