I think macOS makes some trade-offs to give a supposedely better user experience as long you're part of the 80%. If you're not though, yes it is painful.

For me the macOS Display management experience is absolute dreadful. I had the same issues as the author's and I even had to pay actual money for a third party application (BetterDisplay) to fix some of the issues.

The most infurienting one for me is that I can't disable the internal MacBook display when I am connected to an external monitor without closing the lid. Why you may ask? Because I want to keep using the TouchID. However this is impossible in macOS without an external app.