Yes, Microsoft hires employees with zero Windows experience to design their operating system.
That's why the Windows 11 taskbar has the icons centred -- because Apple OSX does too.
That's why there's no way to drag the taskbar around -- because Apple OSX doesn't allow this either.
Etc...
It does though.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp1119/mac
They do research, evaluate multiple variations, get buy in from stakeholders and then AB test the final result.
It’s definitely not as simple as let’s do this because I saw it somewhere before.
With the standard Windows layout users can develop “muscle memory”, especially for the bottom left corner of the screen — which is very easy to hit with a mouse because the edges of the screen “trap” the cursor.
With middle aligned icons, every new app shifts the existing icons.
Also there is no icon in an easy to hit location.
Windows 11 has some other design elements that broke Microsoft’s own integrations. As a random example: “Open with VS Code” and “Terminal here” are hidden submenus now.
I've said things that are totally wrong and been voted up, and said things that are essentially correct except for some tiny detail and been voted down into oblivion.
What especially gets people riled up is if there's an element of tribalism involved. Can be anything: text editors, political party, operating system, programming language, or whatever. You don't even have to be pro/anti any specific tribe. Just mentioning anything to do with such a topic gets people worked up and angry even if your point is strictly neutral or objective.
It's always fun to watch this play out in the microcosm of some obscure topic...
Once there's Linux support for M3 I'll probably switch (have an M1 macbook air with Linux which is doing well) - until then I got things close enough to my Linux Hyprland setup with yabai that it is relatively painfree to use.