From someone who’s used both macOS and GNOME a good deal, GNOME to me feels a lot more like iPadOS if it had been mildly adjusted to run on desktops than it does macOS. There’s several aspects of GNOME and its app suite that are more inflexible than macOS and its apps.

I completely agree. If someone uses GNOME and says OSX isn't configuration friendly, the critique is very hypocritical, enough to be dismissed. If you say that and use almost any other DE (I love KDE) sure. Someone saying the overcooked steak is disgusting while eating a burnt piece of toast is hard to take serious, they are constantly breaking addons and plugins, its like they don't want any 3rd party support, not unlike the often critiqued apple desktop.