This is a great question! I admit that I originally was first drawn to Eastern Orthodoxy when I decided to de-intellectualize a lot of my religious interest through experience. I admire the emphasis that the Eastern Orthodox place on tradition and that theirs is a religion of that places a big emphasis on the experienced.
I actually see the Catholic Church's centralization as less of an issue that it appears at first glance, though. The Church not only preaches subsidiarity in political matters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism)) but the diocesan Bishop plays a more important role in the day-to-day of the normal Catholic's life than the College of Cardinals or even the Pope often does.
Sohrab Ahmari, the editor at the NY Post, has recently used the phrase "peasant papism" to describe his approach to Catholicism in which one concerns oneself less with the politics of synodal activities in Rome and more with the local parish and your family. This strikes me as essentially correct.
I largely am drawn to the Latin rite of the Church because of how much scholastic literature it brings with it, that my maternal family has roots in that rite, and, so far, that most of my masses I've attended have been ICKSP masses from that rite.
That being said, there are plenty of non-Latin rite Catholic churches that are in full communion with Rome. The Byzantine Catholic church is one example -- those Catholics are Roman in the sense that they recognize the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but they have their own Diocesan structure and some slightly different practices.
I mention them becuase I think it's still possible and would be a positive if there were a reunion between the Eastern and Western Churches. Such a reunion could happen while still respecting the respective traditions and without necessarily centralizing everything in the Bishop of Rome.
From an experiential perspective, the Catholic Church tends to be more heady and analytical, in large part due to the influence of Thomist thought on the theology, and the Eastern Church tends to be more mystical. For me, getting over the initial skepticism of the Church, I needed the analytic convincing more than anything else to get me in the door.
When I first was exploring where to start with the East v. West question, my friend Wiley Falc shared a number of quotations that he found helpful on this. I've pasted some of them from our conversation below.
(Interesting to your additional details to this question, if you're interested in tech and the Eastern Church, I suggest following @cryptochamomile on Twitter. He's a good source of Eastern Church thoughts and mysticism.)
Quotations on the Eastern and Western Divide
"“The Church of the East attributes a prominent role to Saint Peter and a significant place for the Church of Rome in her liturgical, canonical and Patristic thoughts. There are more than 50 liturgical, canonical and Patristic citations that explicitly express such a conviction. The question before us therefore is, why there must be a primacy attributed to Saint Peter in the Church? If there is no primacy in the Universal Church, we shall not be able to legitimize a primacy of all the patriarchs in the other apostolic churches. If the patriarchs of the apostolic churches have legitimate authority over their own respective bishops, it is so because there is a principle of primacy in the Universal Church. If the principle of primacy is valid for a local Church (for example, the Assyrian Church of the East), it is so because it is already valid for the Universal Church. If there is no Peter for the Universal Church, there could not be Peter for the local Church. If all the apostles are equal in authority by virtue of the gift of the Spirit, and if the bishops are the successors of the Apostles, based on what, then, can one of these bishops (i.e., [our own] Catholicos-Patriarchs) have authority over the other bishops?
The Church of the East possesses a theological, liturgical and canonical tradition in which she clearly values the primacy of Peter among the rest of the Apostles and their churches and the relationship Peter has with his successors in the Church of Rome. The official organ of our Church of the East, Mar Abdisho of Soba, the last theologian in our Church before its fall [he is referring to the 14th century canonist who was the last prominent theologian before the Mongol invasion], based himself on such an understanding when he collected his famous Nomocanon in which he clearly states the following: “To the great Rome [authority] was given because the two pillars are laid in the grave there, Peter, I say, the head of the Apostles, and Paul, the teacher of the nations. [Rome] is the first see and the head of the patriarchs” (Memra; Risha 1). Futhermore, Abdisho asserts “...And as the patriarch has authority to do all he wishes in a fitting manner in such things as are beneath his authority, so the patriarch of Rome has authority over all patriarchs, like the blessed Peter over all the community, for he who is in Rome also keeps the office of Peter in all the Church. He who transgresses against these things the ecumenical synod places under anathema” (Memra 9; Risha B). I would like to ask here the following: who among us would dare to think that he or she is more learned than Abdisho of Soba, or that they are more sincere to the Church of our forefathers than Mar Abdisho himself?”
"The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome is an indisputable historical fact. No scientific or eccelesiastical value can be attached to the attempts of the anti-papal critics to cast doubt upon this evident truth...Hence primacy as such should not be looked upon as an obstacle to reunion" -Greek Orthodox theologian Basil Moustakis, in Vers l' Unite Chretienne, April 1960.
“Without whom (the Romans presiding in the Seventh Ecumenical Council) a doctrine brought forward in the Church could not, even thought confirmed by canonical decrees and by ecclesiastical usage, ever obtain full approval or currency. For it is they (the Roman Pontiffs) who have had assigned to them the rule in sacred things, and who have received into their hands the dignity of headship among the Apostles.” -St. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople (758-828 AD)
“It is necessary to know that the decision (the 29th canon) was not accepted by Pope Leo I…And it is not true, as this canon affirms, that the holy fathers have accorded the primacy and honor to Old Rome because it was the capital of the Empire. But it is from on high that it began; it is of grace divine that this Primacy has derived it origin. Peter the most exalted of the Apostles, heard from the mouth of Our Lord these words: ‘Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.’ This is why he possesses among the hierarchs the pre-eminent rank and the first see. It is notorious, besides, that, although Emperors have dwelt at Milan and Ravenna, and their palaces are found there to our own day, these cities have not received on that account the Primacy. For the dignity and pre-eminence of the priestly hierarchy have not been established by the favor of the civil power, but by Divine choice and by apostolic authority.
How would it be possible, because of an earthly Emperor, to displace divine gifts and apostolic privileges and to introduce innovations into the prescriptions of the immaculate faith? Immovable, indeed, unto the end are the privileges of Old Rome. So, in so far as being set over all the churches, the Pontiff of Rome has no need to betake himself to all the holy Ecumenical Councils, but without his participation manifested by the sending of his subordinates, every Ecumenical Council is non-existent and it is he who renders legal everything that has been decided in the Council.” -St. Methodius, Apostle to the Slavs, from the 1st Slavonic edition of the Greek Nomocanon attributed to John the Scholastic, Patriarch of Constantinople (565-577).
Writing to Pope Hadrian I, Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople said: "Your Holiness has inherited the See of the divine Apostle Peter, wherefore lawfully by the will of God you preside over all the hierarchy of the Church."
"It is the will of this ecumenical synod that for all things which have not been justly conducted by a metropolitan or other bishops, the patriarch has the power to decide by his own authority. For he is above his fellows and all the bishops are the sons of his heritage. The honor of metropolitans is like that of an elder brother who finds himself among his brothers. The honor of a patriarch is thus of a father who has authority over his children. And as the patriarch has the power to do all that he wishes for good in the dominion of his authority, so he of Rome will have the power over all the patriarchs like Blessed Peter over the entire community. For he has likewise the place of Peter in the Church of Rome."
-The ancient Arabic canon attributed to the Council of Nicaea and incorporated into the canons of the ancient Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Melkite Churches.
John, Patriarch of Jerusalem (575-593) said, writing to the Catholicos of Georgia: "...for us the Holy Church, we have the word of the Lord, who said to Peter, chief of the Apostles, when giving him the primacy of faith for the strengthening of the churches, 'Thou art Peter, etc.', to this same Peter He has given the Keys of heaven and earth; it is in following his faith that to this day, his disciples and the doctors of the Catholic Church bind and loose; they bind the wicked and loose from their chains those who do penance. Such is, above all, the privilege of those who, on the first most holy and venerable See, are the successors of Peter, and according to the word of God, infallible."