I think the menu bar at the top served macOS well over the years, but I think menus on the window are a better solution now that multi monitor and high resolution monitors are so common. Having it at the top of your primary monitor just ruins Fitt's law.

It may be because of how I use a computer, but I only use Spotlight as an application launcher. Because it's there I will type stuff in the "Search" box in Finder, expecting to filter on the filename of the current folder--instead it it searches "This Mac" and my results are variable names from open source code I've downloaded. Since it also omits results from System files and preferences, like ~/Library, I often use good old locate in a Terminal.

Windows Control Panel is an unholy mess. macOS' Preference Pane search, as well as searching for menu items under Help inside any app, is a godsend.