No other browser has this feature, so I don't see a point of switching elsewhere anyway, unless out of spite to your loss.

Indeed, but some browsers have the tab switch button at the bottom, which I find much more ergonomic. Another reason for me is that Chrome bookmarks page sucks, so I got used to adding them to a folder on my home screen instead. It worked surprisingly well with the Merge Apps and Tabs feature, but with that gone Chrome just stuffs newly opened links in a new tab instead of opening a new window.

If you want some website to be in their own window, visit them in Chrome and go to 3 dot menu and Add to home screen. Basically similar as on desktop, with the taskbar/desktop icon.

That's precisely what I tried to describe in my previous post, but contrary to what you say, Chrome now adds it as a new tab.

Hm, that's odd, I've added Strava to homescreen since the Android app runs a constant GoogleNowAuth service and wasting resources. It runs in it's own window. Although I use the Chrome Beta 52, maybe there's some differences.