> What I'd really love is a middle ground between k8s and Docker Swarm

Maybe this is what you mean:

https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-kube.1.html

  > that gives operators and developers what they need while still providing an escape hatch to k8s when required.

Here you go, linked from the first page

https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-kube-genera...

Podman has an option to play your containers on CRI-O as well, which is a minimal but K8s compliant runtime.