Stop in for a cup of coffee

Mattax said
But with the voice calls going to the 'enhanced' just having a 4G phone was not enough. Needed the brains to put the info through some sort of software or firmware. If my phone had the VoLTE in it, I'd have kept using it even though the g**gle aspects annoyed the sh*t out of me.

So I muddled my way through Straight Talk's lack of directions and new phone is working.
The old phone seems to be still working too. At least for now it may allow emergency calls and I think I can still use it for web access and as a hot spot. Out of curiousity I might test the latter two later.

5GE was/is a marketing term.

Currently you're getting Non Stand Alone (NSA) 5G if you have it at all. That means that the data portion (internet, etc) is going over available 5G and your voice call is still going over the 4G LTE connection. 5G Stand Alone (SA) will follow at some point.

From the FCC Website: As a result, many older cell phones will be unable to make or receive calls and texts, including calls to 911, or use data services. This will affect 3G mobile phones and certain older 4G mobile phones that do not support Voice over LTE (VoLTE or HD Voice).