I mean, I feel like you are treating something I consider "amateur hour development" as "the only reasonable way to do things"; but, even so: you seem to be missing that on macOS it is nigh into impossible to opt out of sitting on a Mac using sad software that comes with Xcode, whereas even C++/WinRT (which you mention, but which I would still mostly consider "low level") is something I can easily use with an alternative IDE from a different operating system. The only place where I feel like you will be sad with Windows development sitting on a drastically different stack is dealing with the more cutting edge .NET functionality. On macOS, it is like pulling teeth to get even a hello world app working without Xcode. Alternative stack tooling like Flutter from giant companies like Google still is forced through Xcode workflows.

I would like to see you use Visual Studio plugins (C++/WinRT is one), or do ETW monitoring, or Event Viewer plugins from Linux.

So many examples that are beyond bare bones Win32 C calls.