I agree with this take, at a theoretical, hypothetical, utopian level. But I think its only the right path when we can trust that the vendors of the operating system are neutral stewards; when they act to at least a useful degree in the service of their customers, both the users and the application developers, versus their own network effect self-interests. Unfortunately, the majority of operating system developers out there are everything except neutral.
In the absence of this utopia, you have to ask if its a better world that Microsoft retains unilateral control over its users' ability to set a default browser (or, any other decision of a similar caliber). I'd rather no one have control; that it just be some file content on the disk that any program can edit, and I'll adopt the responsibility of trying to make sure the programs I install can be trusted with that power.
The alternative smells more like Apple's Security Dystopia than a utopia. Microsoft has already proven to be a bad steward of this functionality: there was a time (which may still be the case, I don't know) where changing the default browser would prompt you to "give Edge another shot" no short of three times. There was a time when even Googling "Chrome" in the Edge browser would re-write the HTML to list the Edge website first (I'm pretty sure they've removed this). Click on a link in any of Windows 11's useless widgets will always open Edge, even if you've overridden the default browser.
The better analogy is possibly: Turning your house's lights to maximum brightness maybe should also set your car's headlights to high beams, if the car manufacturer prompts you to install their own more expensive, worse headlights every time you adjust their brightness in the car.