This is the key difference people miss in this discussion. Being able to do the things you want varies so wildly but the system gets out of the way entirely to let you do things. Not sit and endlessly tweak configurations. While for some that might be what they want to do and believe me macOS also has endless configuration parameters to tweak, the class majority just want to do things with the computer as a tool. It’s a subtle nuance but you said it well, it specifically lets you do whatever you want. Editing configs for hours to customize the desktop environment is not the same as being productive with the system.