After a decade of holding on with a small pool of friends with Matrix, we finallly gave up this month over notifications dropping It hurts because I agree in principle - I don't even fully understand why notifications even should need Play Services or whatever Apple does. But after enough missed occasions, we decided it wasn't worth it and reverted to a blend of SMS and Jabber, where the notifications consistently work (on apps that dont use the above). I don't think the Matrix team is taking this seriousy enough. If you miss out on moments over dropped notifications, you or one of your group will fall back to another method and soon enough so will the whole group.
I suppose whether it's "there" yet depends on your personal needs, but it absolutely is making progress. Maybe slow, but steady and visible.