“They” used to be an acceptable gender-neutral, third-person pronoun until Britain outlawed it in the 19th century. Anyway, you’re right on. How we use pronouns says a lot about our cultural tendencies. Like you, I’ll do almost anything to avoid starting a sentence with “I.” It looks ugly. The English language seems to have some work arounds. For example, you can drop “I” or any other pronoun if you lead with a verb — a rule of slang, I guess. Always way ahead of the curb.