As a long-time Mac, Windows, and Linux user... I'll say that there are plenty of random broken things on the Mac, but there are also a few nice things that work very consistently on the Mac, but you'd never think to try them because you're used to them not working on Linux or Windows. So if you have been using Linux or Windows a long time, you will probably find macOS frustrating, just for the reason that it is different from what you are used to, and not because there are fundamental flaws with macOS or Windows.
Just an example of a couple simple things that are easy on a Mac, but hard on Linux/Windows: saving a file to a specific location. Let's say you have a Finder window open, and an unsaved document open in an application, and you want to save the open document to the folder that's open in the Finder.
1. You could go to the app and hit save, bringing up the save dialog, and then drag the folder (perhaps from the icon in the title bar) into the save dialog. This moves the save dialog to point to that folder.
2. You could save the file somewhere else, and drag the file (perhaps from the icon in the title bar) into the folder.
3. You could save the file on the desktop, and then move it into the desired folder.
I have not really ever figured out a nice way to do this on Windows. I often end up having to navigate through save dialogs on Linux and Windows and it seems unnecessary. Windows certainly doesn't let you move files that are open, which is a frustrating restriction when you run into it.
> Why is it that when I click Finder, nothing actually opens?
It brings Finder forward, and opens a new window if there are no Finder windows open, which is the same behavior as other Mac apps.
> Don't even get me started on the sort options. What kind of file manager applies a Sort view to every single directory, instead of the one you actually set the Sort view to?
Command J lets you set the view options, it's per-directory and includes sorting & grouping. Per-directory options don't do anything in column view. I'm not sure what you're doing, so I don't know what's missing. I switched to column view in the early 2000s and only occasionally switch to list view when I need to sort a massive folder by file sizes (which, unfortunately, requires command-J and checking "calculate all sizes", which is not something you'd know to look for).