To add another data point to the mountain of autism I have laid out in this thread, in 2023 and 2024 when I was still using the original fan, original fan clutch, and original radiator, there were a few periods of time in the fall and spring where I actually removed the fan shroud completely and drove around with nothing but an engine fan and a radiator.
I did this because I got tired of the engine fan scraping against the shroud, and at the time I was still using the original mounting hardware, which was already at its maximum adjustments.
In fact, I cut half an inch off of the tabs at the bottom where it clipped onto the radiator and it's not even that was enough to help, lol
But anyway, it didn't overheat when driving around with no shroud, so perhaps that's evidence towards a healthy water pump or just me getting lucky.
Also, I no longer trust the temperature needle in my equinox, because it basically doesn't do anything relevant to what the actual temperature is according to the display. It's almost like it's just set on a timer to climb to its set position after the engine has been running for a certain amount of time and then just sit there until you turn it off.

(also, look how fuckin thin that factory radiator is, lmao)