Glad that was helpful. Are you familiar with flexbox? If not, it’s amazing for alignment. Gone are the days of fixed pixel margins and whatever else to get elements aligned correctly. You should be able to use it for your label alignment.
I would guess there are differences between Ionic 7 & 8 as there were changes to input in v8. Here is my recommendation. Don’t be afraid to just roll your own input. You don’t always need to use Ionic components especially when you need something super custom like this. Trying to highly customize an Ionic component to fit your needs will create a maintenance headache like you said. The only downside is that you might lose the auto detection on the on-screen keyboard. But, you can easily handle it yourself - Keyboard Guide: Tools to Manage an On-Screen Mobile App Keyboard.