I have never heard as many people avoiding upgrading to the new macOS, this late into the release cycle (we’re up to 26.2), as I have with this release. Between the new UI being an accessibility nightmare and just actively weird, plus it all seeming to be buggier than normal, it just feels like a bit of a mess. I’m not saying there weren’t some good improvements as well, but let’s just say it wasn’t their best.
What I’d like to see from the next release (macOS 27, since they’ve moved to a year-based versioning) is a “back to basics” bug-fix-focused release. Get your house in order, address technical debt, make everything as smooth and reliable as possible, get things into a good state for future development. Address all of the hate on the new UI, and follow your own UX guidelines. Fix the sorts of UI bugs that make the OS feel regressed and sloppy (for example, when dragging and dropping files from one window to another, it’s no longer clear if you’re copying into that window, or into folder inside that window). That absolutely needs to be the priority, though it’s not like I’m in a position to dictate as such.
Worth noting, the idea isn’t a far-fetched one – they’ve done it before with Snow Leopard, and even marketed it as a “No new features” release. It’s time to do that again.