I have to customize the hell out of MacOS before its even tolerable. Though I've been heavily customizing ever since 7.5.

Have you ever thought about declaring customisation 'bankruptcy' and just using it out of the box with defaults? That's what I do - never customise anything. I do genuinely think it saves me a lot of time.

All my Linux configuration files are versioned. Doesn't take that much time to spin up a new machine anymore.

I just install, checkout, setup symlinks, and done.

I use dotfiles on both Linux and macOS. From the same repository :-)

I think we mean macOS in this context, not Linux.

It's a worthy thought.

Mainly what I customize is to make one computer like the rest of mine. Main examples:

The command key isn't where the Ctrl key is and my hands mess that up. So I flip the key locations.

Identical hotkeys for pulling up a console, opening apps.

Making iterm2 and terminator behave the same.

Identical bash settings.

Etc.

I use a Mac and an Ubuntu machine side by side all day and need them to respond the same to my muscle memory.