Was. Not sure where it's going now.

It's still better than windows 10 and 11, but that's not saying much.

Better in some ways, worse in others. It's less insistent on bothering you with things, but the App Store is a worse blowup than Microsoft Store, macOS's native window management is trash, the OS can't have separate natural scroll settings for the mouse and the trackpad, etc.

I generally feel like Windows is a better OS with more active annoyances, while macOS is aggressively mid as the kids would say, but doesn't actively bother you as much.

Yes, much better. In the last 8 years I haven’t had an update reset my settings yet. On major OS upgrades it will ask me to opt into telemetry but it defaults to my last selection which is “off”.

Apple is far from perfect but I haven’t seen any dark patterns make it into MacOS yet.

I don't know. I moved to linux after windows 8. I do have a windows 11 machine just for VR at home and it's a nightmare to use.

No OS is "better". Each has its own positives and negatives. Run an OS that performs the task required.

It's a tool. Not a religion.