I should’ve clarified, these CDK overlays I’m talking about are things such as a color picker, not a full modal on top of a modal. They are often “attached” to an input, not necessarily covering the entire page. There are many uses for overlays besides a modal.
Also unless I’m missing something, I can’t really avoid using the Ionic modals in the first place, since they are a pretty common part of workflows like create/edit. Yes they block the user’s freedom, but on a phone they are full screen and a very common part of mobile UX as far as I’m aware.