Never had an issue when using a single external monitor. That across Macbook Pros going back to 2013.

Dual external monitors are a different beast. Here I get random issues depending on the external monitors ranging from:

- random reorganisation of my apps

- different resolutions not working well

- one monitor constantly flickering (this may be due to the use of a docking station)

Waking up from sleep works 99% of the time with a single press on the keyboard.

A bigger issue for me is theac not actually going to sleep when I turn off the screen.

So, not sure about your specific problems. Macs can be fiddly, but they tend to work for my professional use case (programming).