The workaround you have identified is unfortunately the only option we have found since the newer app connect releases.
Earlier the app connect itself was a bit inefficient, which caused things to seem to work sequentially, even though it was never so.
With updates in the last year, app connect has become better in terms of efficiency, but we have experienced the same “timing issues” (as we call it) as you are seeing because of that.
There is always some workaround that we figure out, but the result is verbose extra code and even using JS at times.
The problem itself is not very common so not sure what the team can do here.