To anyone experiencing the mod_ssl is not enabled and/or no email sending issue, I figured it out.
First - ignore the message about apache and mod_ssl if you are using Litespeed Web Server and TLS/SSL SMTP (the actual test for whether mod_ssl is active is apache specific)
Second - remove or disable all "free" mail plugins as none of them work under Osclass 8 / PHP 8.1 (haven't tested other php versions)
Third - configure your mail sending under Mail Settings using your SMTP credentials, save and click "Send test email"
You should now see a message appearing on whether the text was successful or not (I was not seeing that before as clicking the button did nothing)
Mail sending is now working =)
@MBThemes - would still highly appreciate if you could update current or add new mail plugin/s for top mail sending platforms to send via API which is much more preferred for medium to high traffic sites. I'd happily pay for a mail plugin that includes SES, Postmark, SendinBlue and other providers via API (low to high cost).
Cheers
PS. Avoid Mailchimp/Mandrill like the plague - Any provider that automatically suspends new accounts and asks prospect clients to verify their identity by uploading their IDs to a google doc server should be avoided.