USB reset/poweroff handling for HDD

Start with the linked forum discussion and the USB_MSD_PWR_OFF_TIME=0 EEPROM setting described in the issue. Trace how USB storage is handled during Raspberry Pi reset and poweroff, then determine whether a graceful HDD sleep or park can occur before power is removed without preventing shutdown.

I previously used a PI3 mainly for retro gaming, so I have some little experience tinkering with it.
Now I just aquired a PI4 to use it as a NAS, with a 2.5" 2TB USB3 HDD powered directly from the PI, fully updated/upgraded/dist-upgraded.
I am powering the PI through the GPIO header, using pins 2+4 for +5V, 6+9 for ground, with thick and short wires (not the regular colored ones which are very thin).

Issue:

On reset or poweroff, the hard drive makes a loud clicking/rattling of the head.
The "Power-Off_Retract_Count" item in the hard disk's SMART info is increasing as I poweroff/reset the PI. If I reboot or poweroff my PC or laptop with the drive connected, there's definitely no clicking, so there seems to be an issue on how the USB ports are handled on reset/poweroff of the PI3+PI4 (and maybe the older ones as well?).
Originally, I had two clicks from the HDD, one right on reset (just when the screen goes blank) and another one while POSTing, I prevented this last click by adding USB_MSD_PWR_OFF_TIME=0 to the EEPROM, but for the one on reset/poweroff I haven't found anything that would prevent it.
What I noticed is that when issuing the reboot/poweroff command, the OS unloads its stuff, and suddenly (while the HDD LED is still blinking rapidly) the reset occurs, like it is not giving the drive some extra time to park its heads gracefully before cutting the power to the ports. This clicking definitely shorts the lifespan of the drive's head. Is this power-reset really needed?
I've seen this mentioned already, here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=247093 but the solution was of no help to me because I am not booting from SD, so the proposed script can't be run as the HDD can't be umounted till the very end.
But still, I think it is a good idea: send a sleep command to the drive after unloading the OS and just before the reset/poweroff. The sleep command will park the head normally, without the abrupt clicking.
Can this be implemented somehow?

Thanks in advance for any clues!