That sounds strange. Are you sure you're getting the main stream and not one of the lower resolution substreams from the camera?
I don't know what the setup is like in Frigate. My setup is a bit old now as I haven't really updated it, but BlueIris uses the lower res substreams for motion and object detection. I'm still using DeepStack for object detection, even though it's not supported now, but recording and clips uses the main stream. Using the substreams reduces the load on the CPU. This is the BlueIris guide for substreams, it might have some relevant info that could help: https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/sub-stream-guide/
Yeah my camera isn't amazing at night either, but I don't need to to be. Usually if someone comes close to the door, they'll be identifiable anyway as the motion sensor lights will come on. It's an Amcrest one I bought years ago on amazon.
Yeah definitely blurry with motion in full darkness with mine too, but we have a street lamp not far from our driveway that lights up a fair bit at night, so it's not that bad. From a security perspective it doesn't actually matter too much. I'm willing to bet if you handed crystal clear footage of someone breaking in to the police, they still wouldn't be able to do very much with it, unless the person is someone already known to them.
It occurs to me that you could also reverse the logic for your bins - instead of an expensive camera to cover both long and short distance, just get a cheap one pointed where they usually sit and have the logic be "Hey, the bins should be out, but they're sitting here". Maybe not as fun though?