There was only a single combination of hardware/OS X release that I ever recall experiencing kernel panics often enough to bother me. It was one of the first generations of Intel iMacs on release 10.4 or 10.5.
I'm currently using 10.5 (Catalina) on a work-provided 2018 13" MBP hooked to an external display via a Thunderbolt 2 dock. I use it for compiling Android and iOS mobile apps, web browsing, accessing work via VPN, Slack, Google Meet, all the normal things you'd expect of a developer machine.
I also have a personal 2017 non-retina MBA running Catalina. My wife has the same laptop running Mojave. Both kids have 11" MBA's running Mojave. There's a 2013 iMac in the house running Mojave.
I can't recall having seen a kernel panic on a single one of these machines ever. I'm not denying they happen to other folks, but if this is so common an issue, I'm surprised I haven't seen it across any of my machines.
Are there other issues with macOS and iOS that occasionally drive me crazy? Sure, let me tell you about iCloud drive syncing issues I've had to deal with. Or the bug in Bootcamp I just experienced yesterday where it doesn't properly account for the SSD portion of a Fusion drive when partitioning the drive for Mac/Windows. Or how screen rotation sometimes just gets stuck on iOS in the wrong orientation or at the wrong aspect ratio.
But having just installed Windows 10 yesterday... OMG, I'll take macOS over Windows any day of the week.
And no, Linux is still not an alternative. (I'm a recovering Sys Admin and used Linux as my desktop for about 5 years.) I want a single OS I can run on all of my devices, and Linux just isn't an acceptable consumer OS for myself and certainly not for my wife and kids. I want an OS that just connects to WiFi, just works with my printer, can sync photos and music with my phone, allows me to rent movies, sleeps and wakes properly, that I don't have to futz with, etc. I want an excellent tablet experience for my artist daughter. As much as possible, I don't want to have to be tech support for my family.
So that's why this guy puts up with Apple, warts and all. It's the best set of tradeoffs for me and my family.