"Yes, in principle I could export the list of tabs to a text file, and begin anew ..."

I came here to complain that, actually, you can't.

Or rather, it's surprisingly complicated to export a simple list of current tab URLs to a plain old text file.

You need to dig several directories deep into /Library (or whatever, depending on your OS) and then use JSON tools to export ... I've already lost most people.

Why can't we just have:

about:tabs

... which is nothing but a one URL per line, text listing of all of our currently open tabs ? How simple and nice and useful would that be ?

Go searching for "how can I export tabs" or "how can I save tab urls" and you'll see thousands of people trying (usually in vain) to achieve this very, very simple thing.