I'm not the OP or the poster on that point, but iOS and Monterey drive me up the wall with the many hidden controls — and the controls you now have to click on to make your choices appear, one’s that used to take a single click!
View Selection
For example, in Monterey, the choice of Icon, List, Column, Gallery now requires the use of a pull down menu — unless your Finder window is is incredibly wide horizontally. Then, it inconsistently becomes the old useful, functional, and transparent 4-icon set.
The View choice also no longer appears in the left-hand corner, but is shifted towards the center because of all the wasted space allocated to the folder's name. In fact, you can't even position the View menu all that close to the name.
View and Path Location
Having View be a drop-down menu also sows confusion with the classic Path drop-down, which used to be the only such icon in the Finder window tool bar. In Mojave and earier OSS, you could position it right at the center of the folder window where it belongs, functionally and aesthetically.
In Monterey, if you put the View drop-down menu on the right side of the toolbar, so that Path can be centered, it then requires TWO clicks to make a choice — one to show “View” and then another on that to show the choices. Steps backwards. Hidden and extra clicks!
Vanishing Act
In addition, if one's folder window is reasonably sized, say squarish, many or most of the toolbar controls vanish!
Too much space is allocated to the name of the folder; typically leaving extraneous white space.
Send Out a Search Party
Search is no longer an omnipresent text box you can simply click and start typing in. Instead, you must click on the magnifying glass, and “suffer” through the distracting visual gyrations of Monterey opening up a search box. (I realize that several or all of these may have been introduced with Catalina or Big Sur, but I jumped from Mojave to Monterey.)
Turning on WiFi Used to Fast, with a Large Margin of Error
Turning on your WiFi can no longer be accomplished by simply clicking the drop-down menu and sliding to its name. Instead, you have the jarring, non-standard, radio button and have to position the mouse pointer just so to click and turn it on! (Or off.)
Those are just for starters, but are ones I used every day for years and are no longer as fast or functional.
Consistency and Transparency
I thought two watchwords of Apple's Human Interface Guidelines were consistency and transparency…. iOS is notorious for all the items that are squirreled away, hidden, and secret.
Sorry for venting, but it's been a frustrating week with Monterey — and its frequent Windows-style, short in height, oddly rounded long rectangular boxes for text entry, and having to deal with Office 16! But those are nitpicks or rants for another day! 😎
