Aside from the keyboard issues, you're talking about design choices you don't like, not design flaws. They made the choices they made, and by and large executed on them at a high degree of quality.
I would personally consider the 2018 Mac Mini to have a design flaw as the case design doesn't allow for good Bluetooth reception and using USB 3 so it would lose connection to my Magic keyboard and trackpad at least once a day which I personally found extremely frustrating. I've also had 2 iPad Pro smart keyboards fail within a year with the 2nd one only seeing light usage. It seems like whatever conductive tape Apple uses doesn't handle humidity well and corrodes quickly where I live. I'm concerned about my 2018 MBP's long term longevity keyboard aside just from the awful awful thermals that shoot the machine to T-junction in about a minute of actually pushing it but we will see. Probably the keyboard will wear out before that.
I think too many people confuse quality and metal construction. Yes, Apple builds nice aluminum enclosures but they neglect other details to achieve that.
Are Apple laptops higher quality, compared to competitors (despite design issues)? My current Macbook had the screen laminate peel off after a few years. To Apple's credit, they promptly repaired the machine at no cost. But I've had friends with similarly priced laptops (XPS, Razor, ...) who encountered similar build-quality issues, but did not receive the same level of support. Granted, all this evidence is anecdotal. I am curious to see across the board comparisons.
Plus, I'm in the market for a new laptop anyway, so this would be a valuable data point. :)
And did you have Applecare when they repaired your machine? I couldn't get them to replace my 2nd iPad Pro smart keyboard when it died since it was out of warranty.
End users have to live with these choices, so we get to decide what is a flaw and what is not. Focusing on thin instead of useful is a design flaw. Requiring dongles for everything is a design flaw.
This is true, but it isn't some collective decision. Something you consider a design flaw others might see as a design win.
When Apple removed the headphone jack from iPhones, (supposedly) in favor of making them waterproof, that was a design choice that many people rightfully disliked. However, we can imagine there was also a population of people who preferred such a tradeoff. For instance: lifeguards, sea-world trainers, deaf people. It's not a 'flaw' simply because you don't prefer it.
If you are someone who buys a diving watch, but isn't a deep sea diver, you aren't justified in complaining that the watch isn't solar powered. There are people who require (or at least prefer) such a watch, and if you aren't among them, don't buy it.
You don't get to decide what is and isn't a flaw based on your arbitrary use cases. An actual flaw is an implementation detail that is not consistent with the design specs. If Apple set out to make a phone with a working headphone jack, and the resulting product didn't have one, thats a flaw. If they set out to make a phone without a headphone jack, then it isn't a design flaw if the resulting phone doesn't have one.
Removing the headphone jack "for waterproofing" is obviously defective for me because other phones that are waterproof didn't have to remove the jack and I had to buy new headphones. It wasn't for Apple though - they designed it that way so they could sell more headphones. That's how subjectivity works.
Who complained about deep sea watches not being solar powered? I don't have to make up situations to prove my point like a weasel. I just point them out as I see them and the examples I've referenced have been widely held as flaws in Apple's designs.
I do get to decide what is a flaw based on intended use cases as stated by Apple. Nobody made up any arbitrary use cases here.