Later versions of Catalina remain not great. The problem is that each version of macOS compounds onto the next, since there's no time for the "tock" after the "tick" anymore. Sure, catastrophic bugs may get fixed, but some stuff just seems to degrade forever (I can't remember the last time drag and drop worked like I expected to... even on Apple apps). The OS usually launches around November, and By WWDC, we're already being told about macOS N + 1 and getting betas of that, so you basically get half a year of "bug fixes," before focus shifts to the next release. There's no "stable" period anymore.
Tiger through Lion had a 2-year release cycle. Ever since Mountain Lion, it's been a 1-year cycle. Further complicating this is that these have included unintuitively "ambitious" (or at least "labor intensive") changes. Big Sur was a UI redesign that touched the entire system. But let's not forget that Mojave was also a huge undertaking to get everything working with Dark Mode (both for Apple developers and third party developers). Meanwhile entire suites of apps get thrown out and the rewrites are used to dogfood Catalyst. It's just infinite churn. The core of the technology has taken on the properties of fashion. And that is just not a great recipe for stability.
I've personally chosen to try to approximate the missing "tock" cycle by upgrading to every other macOS. Clearly this is nowhere near the same benefit of Apple actually dedicating a full year and a half to a release, but at least I don't have to go through the (largely arbitrary) UI changes every year or so, and I have the "bugs I know" to deal with vs. the ones I don't yet know about.
I just moved on to Big Sur since I got an M1... the previous MBP was on High Sierra, so you can imagine my culture shock! Big Sur reminds me of nothing more than Windows XP, and that's not a compliment.
I’ve taken a big liking to Big Sur. It is a graceful evolution of the UI that needs a lot more precision work (like Preferences, the menu bar shortcuts and Notifications) but it’s a solid base for the next couple of years.
I really, really wish they'd ditch the yearly cycle for macOS. It's a mature operating system—older now than classic Mac OS was when OS X launched. It's not missing huge chunks of functionality like iOS, nor is it in lockstep with yearly hardware like the iPhone.
At this point all I do with my Mac is work. I would much rather it be rock solid and reliable than be crammed with new features and change for the sake of change every year. Most of the features that get added for iOS parity/compatibility could probably be delivered in point updates anyway.
Tiger through Lion had a 2-year release cycle. Ever since Mountain Lion, it's been a 1-year cycle. Further complicating this is that these have included unintuitively "ambitious" (or at least "labor intensive") changes. Big Sur was a UI redesign that touched the entire system. But let's not forget that Mojave was also a huge undertaking to get everything working with Dark Mode (both for Apple developers and third party developers). Meanwhile entire suites of apps get thrown out and the rewrites are used to dogfood Catalyst. It's just infinite churn. The core of the technology has taken on the properties of fashion. And that is just not a great recipe for stability.
I've personally chosen to try to approximate the missing "tock" cycle by upgrading to every other macOS. Clearly this is nowhere near the same benefit of Apple actually dedicating a full year and a half to a release, but at least I don't have to go through the (largely arbitrary) UI changes every year or so, and I have the "bugs I know" to deal with vs. the ones I don't yet know about.