I have to admit I'm nostalgic for the straight forward nature of NS/WM and even some of the less powerful interfaces of the time. Most modern desktop environments including macOS feel like an exercise in evading landmines of unpredictable or inconsistent behavior. On macOS specifically the retrofitting of tabs into applications mostly designed to be SDI has (mixed with some legit SDI apps and full screen stuff) is a mess. Can anyone actually keep track of dozens of windows with maybe dozens more tabs open in each one? Sometimes I find a randomly find a minimized window full of stuff I haven't seen in weeks. Lost in the complexity.
I agree modern macOS has too many UI inconsistencies—but I really don't think tabs are one of them. They behave predictably enough in proper Cocoa apps. (If you're using an app with its own tab implementation that behaves differently, there's not much any OS can really do about that.)
Although to your point of keeping track, I do think tabs could be integrated with Exposé ("Mission Control") a bit better.
eh? Tabs on macOS are an opt-in feature, right? I don't think I ever opened more than 1 tab in an app like Finder or Mail unless I explicitly tried to.
