When I set up a Mac I have a short list of things that I need to install. When I set up Windows I have a much longer list of things that I need to un-install. I much prefer the former.

The users who run into issues with menubar space would probably be well served to question if they really need all that stuff. The people with the most stuff up there tend to be the same ones who are always complaining about system slowness or weird issues... because they have 2 dozen utilities running in the background that they don't consider, which are all looking for CPU time or trying to change the default behavior of the OS in conflicting ways.

My goal is genially not to have anything running in the menubar that isn't out of the box from the OS. I had a similar desire with the system tray on Windows (though it was more difficult on Windows due to some hardware requiring it).

Work is the only place I have an issue, because they install a bunch of security agents that all want a spot in the menubar, even though they never need me to interact with them or know what they're doing. Those agents sitting up in the menubar tend to be the reason my system has slow downs or issues. Though the slowdowns have gone away since moving to M1. On Intel my fan used to run all the time. Now I'm just left with the weird issues they cause.

TBF - It still does "just work," The fact that it doesn't completely fit into your (and my) preferences doesn't really change that, and if that's the standard, then everything will fall short of it.

And for years and years when in discussions about Linux vs Mac, Linux was always slammed as having to be customized and "user's should never have to use the terminal" . (I agree with that, but even in 2014 I remember having to run terminal commands to tweak stuff to make it work more like I wanted to)

I'd argue that for most people, the system defaults are fine. They don't have GUI controls / preferences for most of the stuff that power users and the HN crowd might need. However, they provide a path for people at those levels with CLI commands.

I think it's a fair balance. If you're running a bajillion things that add menu icons and you don't also care about computers enough to want to learn more, that's probably pretty frustrating. Most of the people I've met who care a lot about custom software have been curious about going further. Small sample size, just my two cents.

That phrase "just works" speaks more to vertical integration than it does to any more specific claim about UX, alignment to preferences, or immediate productivity, and to demonstrate how foundationally this is encoded, you implicitly alluded as much in that opening phrase "a mac, the OS" that directly conflated the hardware and the software.

Frankly, I prefer the mac because there's so little arsing around with drivers. Not out of any blinkered misconceptions about quality, usability, or an otiose love for Apple or their products otherwise.

I just wish we could get these settings in nice plain text files so we can version control them and edit them easily.

Be glad that you have options at all. They could have not put them in user defaults

You expect someone to ship you an OS personalized to your taste and preferences ?

nix-darwin solves a lot of those pains. Not all of them, but it makes initial setup a lot simpler and faster.