If I click an app in the Dock, I want it to come forward, always.
If an app launches for some other reason, I don't want it to steal the focus, ever. But that's in general, independent of Secure Keyboard Entry.
I can't even begin to list the number of times where I've hit the enter key in an IDE at the exact moment that a application with a crucial modal message box steals focus.
I'm not sure there's a disagreement here at all. Normally there shouldn't be any time for a context switch between launching an app and the app showing its window. If you're talking about a slow launching app, then yes, I agree that's a problem, and I commented on that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31867084
In general, app launching is too slow nowadays. Apple used to optimize this on Mac OS X, but they seem to have completely given up. Maybe it's "security" checks. Anyway, it can be annoying.
Fun side note: apps can steal focus from the lock screen password entry too (maybe this one has been fixed). Made it "fun" to log into locked screens while CI spawned dozens of windows in the background.
Agreed. I think I filed a Radar about this a dozen years ago or so.
But the new Monterey behavior doesn't solve this problem, because it only applies to very limited circumstances.
And if you click back on the old window after clicking an app icon (which is slow to load), the newly opening app perhaps should not steal focus (interrupting user interaction at an unpredictable point) once it does pop up (though I'm unsure if this is an ideal user experience, how should the new app indicate its presence?).