Having come over from Windows (again) in 2021, I find it great. At least the UI is consistent, when they refresh it.
In Windows, you still have parts of the UI dating back to the 1990s and still wearing their 1990s clothing, some things work, others don’t - on some of our PCs, the new System Settings tell you that, as the local administrator, you don’t have enough rights to make changes! The old Control Panel still works (yes, you can change most thing in both the new and old way).
The new Control Panel on the Mac is different, but at least it has all been changed in one go and it all looks like it belongs. Dark Mode is consistent, again. The use of PassKeys, sucurity keys and the better encryption of data in iCloud are all big improvements that came with Ventura.
I’m not a musician, so I can’t really comment on attaching music devices, but the external drives, keyboard and mouse “just worked”. Parallels “just worked”, connecting to and maintaining my Linux boxes “just worked”, no extra tools needed.
I’ve used Macs on-and-off for nearly 3 decades. I first used a Plus and then an SE back in the late 80s and early 90s. I bought my first Mac for home use around 2006, the first 24" iMac, using it up until Lion, when support was dropped for it. Each time I’ve come back to the Mac, it has been better than when I left it.
But, security is one of the biggest problems facing all of computing these days, so it is hardly a surprise that modern devices are more sensitive to security issues and ways in which the system can be compromised. That is one of the operating system’s primary roles, and today, probably its most important one.
Without knowing exactly what problems you are facing, it is hard to say why you are having problems, whether the OS is really at fault, or whether it is being reasonable, for the current times, and you need to adjust.
