I also use grated frozen butter for my pie crust. Sometime half butter and halt frozen Crisco.
Another thing I do when baking pies–use a glass pie plate. Ceramic is too heavy and heats very slowly, undercooking the bottom crust so you get soggy pie. Metal is OK, but I find glass works better.
Also, with glass you can lift the pie plate up and look at the bottom to make sure it’s browned before you take the pie out of the oven.
If you don’t want to brush your top crust with milk/cream/egg, you need to add sugar (2tsp/1tbsp) to the dough to get to brown nicely in the oven. With a sweet filling, you’ll never notice the sugar in the pie dough, but it makes big difference in the pie’s appearance.
For heavier or savory fillings like pot pies or terrines–use a hot water pastry dough. (Thank you Paul Hollywood for the tip!) It’s sturdier and less likely to to break. It works great for hand pies which need to a sturdier crust. D makes a killer vegetable masala hand pie using hot water pastry. (They freeze great and will keep a couple days in the fridge without getting soggy.)
Also true for pizza dough. I make pizza all the time for the grands. (They call it Grandma pizza and like it better than the fancy New Haven Style pizza their parents prefer–probably because the crust is softer and less chewy.) I will spread the dough by hand on an oiled cookie sheet, let it rest if it insists on shrinking back, spread it some more, rest….