Your opinion wrt IPA being a superior solvent to ethanol is spot on with the science. In the book, I did a basic Hansen Solubility Parameter analysis, and of the alcohols, IPA has the lowest Hildebrand solubility parameter - the lower the value essentially the more powerful the solvent. The Hildebrand solubility parameter considers three parameters - the energy from dispersion forces between molecules; the energy from dipolar intermolecular force between molecules; and the energy from hydrogen bonds between molecules; and is calculated as the square root of the sum of the squares. The book Chapter X addresses the details.
Otherwise, I suspect like you, I am no fan of solvents. When I was with the Navy and was developing cleaning procedures for life support I had a three member medical board that reviewed every cleaning agent - the Senior Navy Toxicologist, the Senior Navy Industrial Hygienist and the Senior Diving/Submarine Medical Officer (this represented the most critical application). We also off-gassed every cleaning agent at NASA White Sands Test Facility labs so got a view into what was actually in the cleaning agents. Over the many years I got quite an education on the hazards of solvents and 'other' hidden hazards even in some commercial water based cleaning agents.