Why didn't I think of this sooner? Here I was, slaving away until 6-7pm every day, when I could have just got up from my chair and walked out of the building!

Honestly anyone who is passionate about which time to switch to has put way too much faith in the whole academia-to-reality pipeline. Those folks get shit so directionally wrong so often on more important things, I really don't think any academic's model of the consequences of ST/DT will be anything remotely close to complete.

We should all just chill, and be grateful for the relief.

No, I am aware of the lives of other working people, and I have worked jobs with fixed shifts before.

But I also have seen over the last 20 years that flexible time has moved from an exotic perk to a standard contract term in my country, at least for white-collar workers. And we have mandatory works councils, where workers can have a say in certain decisions, for example shift hours. (In the US the equivalent is roughly when a company has a union.)

So it is not being out of touch, it is a political demand. I am just saying what's possible.

In the US, workers don't get to make political demands. Union membership is at an all-time low and most states have stacks of anti-worker laws. So maybe our different perspectives are simply based on the realities of our different countries.