The parts of the OS you are describing were not designed in a modular way. It seems to me like you are using the wrong operating system if you want this level of control.
It is a tool and should not push policy through arbitrary limitations. But it seems we are caught in a war of lock-in ecosystem providers. Kind of a more realistic version of the much used picture of corporation-states or societies in sci-fi.
Apart from this, hypothetically I might not only an end-user but also an admin who has to implement certain policies. The argument is never sound, there is always an economic or practical tradeoff and you are stuck somewhere and have to make it work and yours.
I have my *nix shell with software from macports as well.
I just don't have the motivation or time anymore to make linux fit my personal computer needs, it always ends up in rabbit holes of tangles to accomplish many things and when you are actually trying to accomplish something unrelated to playing with it.
macOS itself is actually designed in a very modular way if you look at the message based integration of components via XPC and "do one thing" daemons.
I have accepted that I must forfeit some personal preferences in the Apple ecosystem, but I choose to draw the line with not being able to disable intrusive and privacy related features/components.
A similar complaint can be made about Windows, which is more monolithic in its design in my view, but it offers (as mentioned in my top-level comment) proper descriptions and a UI to disable services. Also there are many tools like Win10Privacy and such available which disable a lot, without making the system to constantly misbehave.
"trains on time" - While I appreciate the metaphor, when considered carefully, it is more likely linux and the pragmatic approach that makes the "trains run on time" in many fields. (embedded and server-side)
The only platform that does this is iOS, which embeds an ideology that forces developers to lock down their apps even against their own wishes, and hence prevents the use of GPLv3 licensed code.
Meanwhile, the major Linux distros include all types of licenses, including proprietary.
Linux and the BSDs are traditionally far in the other direction: extreme flexibility and customisability, but you really do have to configure things before you can start working. Windows is somewhere in the middle but (IMHO unfortunately) moving towards the Mac side.
On what basis are you saying that?