If you want recipes that are a bit more precise, check out baking ones. I've frequently heard people say that cooking is easy, just throwing ingredients together. The same people went on to note that baking, however, is like a precise science: add exactly X grams of that, cook at specifically Y degrees, mix by rotating counter-clockwise for Z seconds. It's all very delicate and precise.

As for regular recipes, I really don't think this type of precise writing is popular because everybody's got different tastes and palates so it would be tough to say precisely how one should 'brown an onion', although I get where you're coming from. Personally, I've gotten in the habit of finding recipes, trying them out, and saving them with personalized tweaks. So when a recipe calls for a 'dash of salt', I replace it with 'exactly 1 tbsp of salt' or 'no salt necessary'.