I have to reluctantly conclude: macOS Monterey is a horrible product, quality-wise

[gctwnl]

I have been a macOS user since the first appearance of MacOS X. After the initial start, macOS became a platform that I loved not just for the experience, but for its stability and performance. I would easily have a laptop running for many months without single reboot and without problems. I am reasonably technical (having been part of a team that won an Apple Design Award once) and I know my way around the lower levels of the OS. There too I could do the things I should be able to do and 'it just worked'.

The last years, my experience has been completely otherwise and I've reached the end of the line. A few months back I decided to move my older macOS versions (one Mojave and a few macOS Catalinas) to macOS Monterey and, boy, do I wish I had never done that (in case of Mojave, I really wanted to because there were no longer security fixes).

A list of issues I encountered in various versions of Monterey:

• A 4K LG monitor that isn't recognized as 4K but as 5K. Notable: that same monitor is recognised fine on the only M1 Mac over here. Note also: I have 5 different Macs in this household, this clearly is not a hardware problem if all the Monterey x86 Macs do not recognise the monitor correctly, but the same hardware before the upgrade did, the only x86 Mac still running Big Sur does, and the M1 Mac running Monterey does.
• A monitor that directly after the 'upgrade' on a Mini was only showing black until after an SMC reset, a problem that returned a few times
• If Display user preferences are set, it might crash WindowServer making it impossible for that user to log in (log in, Window Server starts up, crashes, back to login screen). I had to go in via another user, clean out the affected user's prerefences, after which logging in was possible again (though all preferences were lost)
• Booting a system with a USB SSD attached (SanDisk) via USB ends up in a situation that the whole disk isn't seen (missing from System Info) until you physically disconnect/reconnect the drive. Two Thunderbolt drives connect fine and so does a USB RAID
• Attached wired keyboards/trackpad (all Apple) unable to wake a system from deep sleep, you need to physically disconnect/reconnect them to get them recognised
• A monitor as second monitor on an iMac. When the monitor is turned off, the main screen works but input (trackpad, keyboard) gets stuck for a half-second or so all the time.
• If you use software that allows connections from the outside and you use the Application Firewall (ALF) to protect your system, at some point using ALF meant that a certain service would stop working after a few hours because the kernel had stopped passing connections on to the software. Stopping and starting the software made it work again for a few hours. This software ran fine under Mojave and several earlier versions. It seemed that the kernel ran out of resources and that stopping and starting the software freed them. I had to stop using the firewall as a result.
• Services that are started by hand work fine, but when started via launchd are unable to reach.
• And the latest: under 12.5.1 the system suddenly freezes for all connection requests (e.g. you cannot ssh in to the system, or use ARD, etc. Nothing that requires TCP/IP it seems. Ping works, but no TCP/IP port can be reached. Most of the time, this will resolve itself after a while as if the kernel gets 'stuck' and at some point gets 'unstuck', but sometimes it doesn't and you have to hope you are logged out and can click the restart button or you have to do hard reboot. The last time an unstuck happened after an hour or so.

And this list isn't even complete. macOS Monterey 12.5.1 in my experience is as buggy and fragile as anything I have ever had to work with in decades, and that includes older Microsoft Windows. This is now especially the case with anything having to do with sockets, ports, traffic, etc., i.e. kernel level stuff.

I have my suspicions about what may be in play here:

• Apple not spending as much energy on x86 as it does on M1 (which pisses me off as I spent thousands on all these machines)
• Apple working hard on adding security (e.g. the kernel being able to merge a read-only and writable volume into one file system, very neat, and a lot that is now connected to software being signed) but not doing a very good job at writing correct code that can handle all the different situations ('happy flow code')
• The 'unstuck' behaviour of 12.5.1 really feels like Apple has put in some stopgap measure to make sure that if the system gets stuck there is some sort of low level 'reset'. Or, Apple knows this is unreliable, but has implemented some sort of garbage collection that once in a while cleans stuff up so it starts working again

Apple has always been that weird combination of 'insane level of attention to detail' in one place and 'insane level of neglect' elsewhere. But I have to conclude that now that Monterey is at version 12.5.1 it still is buggy, fragile, unreliable. It is a P.o.J. and I am very sorry that after more than 20 years of Apple use I have to give up on ever having something as robust as it was years ago. And the history of recent versions have been that they have become worse and worse in terms of reliability over the years.

I have started to investigate moving parts of my (until now 100% Apple) landscape to another OS because the level of reliability has become so low that I have lost my confidence that it will be reliable any time soon.

 

[rpmurray]

What is this other OS that you are moving to that is more reliable? I know it can't be Windows so it must be some flavor of Linux?

Monterey is working (mostly) fine for me. But then again, when I do an update to the next major release of an OS I always do a clean install. I do agree that the quality of the macOS has been on a downward spiral ever since Apple decided on changes for the sake of change on a yearly basis and spend more time on new bling and less time on fixing bugs that have been with us for years, or some of the newer bugs (looking at USB and bluetooth random disconnects).

 

[Slartibart]

Monterey is working (mostly) fine for me.

Well, you disqualified at »(mostly)« 🤓😇

 

[Nermal]

I've said this before, but the thing that really frustrates me is not that the bugs exist, but that they're not getting fixed. I've reported dozens over the past two years and Apple has only responded to two of them: One of those responses was to say that the bug had been fixed (it hadn't), and one to say that it's by design (it shouldn't be*). The rest of the bug reports have apparently been completely ignored.

*I figured out a sequence of steps that makes the Maps app pop up unexpectedly. I would never expect an app to open a new window of its own accord, whether by design or not.

 

[gctwnl]

When I was using a NeXT, there were small rounding errors in the standard C library (which popped up everywhere, such as in databases) which were never fixed during all of NeXT's existence (NeXTSTEP morphed into macOS, iOS, TVOS — we're at NeXTSTEP v 21.6.0 now AKA macOS 12.5.1). These fixes were only done when Apple turned NeXTSTEP into MacOS X and a while after that there was decent maintenance. NeXT were building all kinds of kits (such as WebKit) and new stuff, but the bottom BSD compatible stuff was completely neglected. This philosophy is now again in full view with Apple today.

Apple's OS should be robust enough to survive what you can throw at it in user space, but it isn't and that is really horrible.

Apple is very good at many things including creating new user experiences, but it is really truly horrible at running a decent maintenance of the non-shiny stuff. I've also reported many bugs. Many were never fixed. Often simply silently closed. Some survived many versions of the OS.

In France in the 1970's there was a club of 'dissatisfied Citroën CX drivers'. They did not want to drive anything but Citroën CX because of the driving experience, but the car had many problems because of sloppy engineering and design. Citroën did not fix it and these people were so enraged by the neglect, that they started a club to pressure the car company.
Citroën was hyper-innovative until roughly the late 1970's but always had weaknesses in engineering and design. Really reminds me of Apple in many ways. These days, Citroën is just all shiny marketing and gimmicks and not really technologically innovative at all anymore. Let's hope that is not where Apple is heading.

 

[gregmac19]

I have been a macOS user since the first appearance of MacOS X. After the initial start, macOS became a platform that I loved not just for the experience, but for its stability and performance. I would easily have a laptop running for many months without single reboot and without problems. I am reasonably technical (having been part of a team that won an Apple Design Award once) and I know my way around the lower levels of the OS. There too I could do the things I should be able to do and 'it just worked'.

The last years, my experience has been completely otherwise and I've reached the end of the line. A few months back I decided to move my older macOS versions (one Mojave and a few macOS Catalinas) to macOS Monterey and, boy, do I wish I had never done that (in case of Mojave, I really wanted to because there were no longer security fixes).

A list of issues I encountered in various versions of Monterey:

• A 4K LG monitor that isn't recognized as 4K but as 5K. Notable: that same monitor is recognised fine on the only M1 Mac over here. Note also: I have 5 different Macs in this household, this clearly is not a hardware problem if all the Monterey x86 Macs do not recognise the monitor correctly, but the same hardware before the upgrade did, the only x86 Mac still running Big Sur does, and the M1 Mac running Monterey does.
• A monitor that directly after the 'upgrade' on a Mini was only showing black until after an SMC reset, a problem that returned a few times
• If Display user preferences are set, it might crash WindowServer making it impossible for that user to log in (log in, Window Server starts up, crashes, back to login screen). I had to go in via another user, clean out the affected user's prerefences, after which logging in was possible again (though all preferences were lost)
• Booting a system with a USB SSD attached (SanDisk) via USB ends up in a situation that the whole disk isn't seen (missing from System Info) until you physically disconnect/reconnect the drive. Two Thunderbolt drives connect fine and so does a USB RAID
• Attached wired keyboards/trackpad (all Apple) unable to wake a system from deep sleep, you need to physically disconnect/reconnect them to get them recognised
• A monitor as second monitor on an iMac. When the monitor is turned off, the main screen works but input (trackpad, keyboard) gets stuck for a half-second or so all the time.
• If you use software that allows connections from the outside and you use the Application Firewall (ALF) to protect your system, at some point using ALF meant that a certain service would stop working after a few hours because the kernel had stopped passing connections on to the software. Stopping and starting the software made it work again for a few hours. This software ran fine under Mojave and several earlier versions. It seemed that the kernel ran out of resources and that stopping and starting the software freed them. I had to stop using the firewall as a result.
• Services that are started by hand work fine, but when started via launchd are unable to reach.
• And the latest: under 12.5.1 the system suddenly freezes for all connection requests (e.g. you cannot ssh in to the system, or use ARD, etc. Nothing that requires TCP/IP it seems. Ping works, but no TCP/IP port can be reached. Most of the time, this will resolve itself after a while as if the kernel gets 'stuck' and at some point gets 'unstuck', but sometimes it doesn't and you have to hope you are logged out and can click the restart button or you have to do hard reboot. The last time an unstuck happened after an hour or so.

And this list isn't even complete. macOS Monterey 12.5.1 in my opinion is as buggy and fragile as anything I have ever had to work with in decades, and that includes older Microsoft Windows. This is now especially the case with anything having to do with sockets, ports, traffic, etc., i.e. kernel level stuff.

I have my suspicions about what may be in play here:

• Apple not spending as much energy on x86 as it does on M1 (which pisses me off as I spent thousands on all these machines)
• Apple working hard on adding security (e.g. the kernel being able to merge a read-only and writable volume into one file system, very neat, and a lot that is now connected to software being signed) but not doing a very good job at writing correct code that can handle all the different situations ('happy flow code')
• The 'unstuck' behaviour of 12.5.1 really feels like Apple has put in some stopgap measure to make sure that if the system gets stuck there is some sort of low level 'reset'. Or, Apple knows this is unreliable, but has implemented some sort of garbage collection that once in a while cleans stuff up so it starts working again

Apple has always been that weird combination of 'insane level of attention to detail' in one place and 'insane level of neglect' elsewhere. But I have to conclude that now that Monterey is at version 12.5.1 it still is buggy, fragile, unreliable. It is a P.o.J. and I am very sorry that after more than 20 years of Apple use I have to give up on ever having something as robust as it was years ago. And the history of recent versions have been that they have become worse and worse in terms of reliability over the years.

I have started to investigate moving parts of my (until now 100% Apple) landscape to another OS because the level of reliability has become so low that I have lost my confidence that it will be reliable any time soon.

Please let us know how reliable you find other OSs. I've considered switching from Mac OS, but I'm not confident I'll find anything better.

 

[owidhh]

NeXT were building all kinds of kits (such as WebKit) and new stuff,

Have to single out this one - NeXT did not build WebKit.

The KDE project (the free/open-source software desktop environment started in the 90s) created KHTML to have their own web browser engine, which was then taken by Apple in the early 2000's to start creating their own browser as well. This was later forked from KHTML to create WebKit, in, I believe, 2005.

(Parts of WebKit were later used as the start of the Chrome project within Google, and eventually split into its own engine called Blink)

 

[quynhtrang]

I can't understand why so many users are so eager to upgrade. I hate upgrading for the very simple reason- it breaks stuff.

I just upgraded to Big Sur OS11 from Catalina on my 2019 iMac and only because it ran OK on my M1 MacBook Air.

 

[PC mcLinMorph]

• The 'unstuck' behaviour of 12.5.1 really feels like Apple has put in some stopgap measure to make sure that if the system gets stuck there is some sort of low level 'reset'. Or, Apple knows this is unreliable, but has implemented some sort of garbage collection that once in a while cleans stuff up so it starts working again

100% agree

Apple has always been that weird combination of 'insane level of attention to detail' in one place and 'insane level of neglect' elsewhere. But I have to conclude that now that Monterey is at version 12.5.1 it still is buggy, fragile, unreliable. It is a P.o.J.

They thought nobody wouldn notice. Well most ppl perhaps wont care/notice... but... it's pretty obvious that this wasnt ready to release. it gets worse with every new release. They just don't care. Because they can

 

[Nermal]

it gets worse with every new release. They just don't care. Because they can

The problem is still the large "Apple can do no wrong" crowd. Apple knows that people will buy stuff no matter how bad it is, so long as it's slightly better than Windows.

Apple commands a premium price and we should demand better.

 

[Wizec]

I've said this before, but the thing that really frustrates me is not that the bugs exist, but that they're not getting fixed. I've reported dozens over the past two years and Apple has only responded to two of them: One of those responses was to say that the bug had been fixed (it hadn't), and one to say that it's by design (it shouldn't be*). The rest of the bug reports have apparently been completely ignored.

*I figured out a sequence of steps that makes the Maps app pop up unexpectedly. I would never expect an app to open a new window of its own accord, whether by design or not.

I would have to agree with you here, wholeheartedly. Thankfully I've only been impacted by a couple of macOS bugs, and they did get fixed, but, they did not get fixed until media outlets such as MacRumors had published articles about them.

This is why I appreciate when MacRumors picks up on common issues and publicizes them. It seems to be one of the most effective ways to get a common issue resolved. Pretty sad, but the last few years, that seems to be the pattern.

 

[DHagan4755]

Today's Apple has many operating systems to continually update:
macOS
iOS
iPadOS
watchOS
tvOS
audioOS.

It's obvious Apple should stop trying to revamp everything annually. It's been untenable for a few years now & it shows. Us loyal Apple customers yearn for better craftsmanship. We get it: competition is stiff. The best ideas are already on the table though, just make them secure, robust, and stable — then release them. Not release now, patch later.

 

[chikorita157]

I have no problems with Monterey, but even so, there is not that many good alternatives besides Windows 11, which is another crap show and worse than Windows 10, which was pretty bad, probably as it’s riddled with bugs. Also, I do not like how they took features away let along forcing people to use a Microsoft account. That is why I will never go back to Windows, I don’t want Microsoft spy into every aspect of my life.

As for Linux, it’s good for server use, but the desktop experience is terrible and the lack of apps like Photoshop, Microsoft Office, etc to make it a worthwhile alternative. In short, companies really need to slow down with the major updates and fix the existing bugs, but it’s very unlikely that Apple and Microsoft would do that since competition is stiff and the average consumer wants new features. It’s the reality we have to accept.

 

[MauiPa]

Seeing as I have never had any of those issues, I would just have to question if there isn’t something else going on. Personally, I do a clean install with every major os update. I recently noticed some weird files installed as login items, I didn’t put them there but maybe some software I dabbled with did. Clean install later - gone. That could also help with weird monitor issues. Of course dont you hate that some display companies (Samsung) only allow updates to firmware from windows, pathetic! Also don’t use any external drive crapware (WD). It corrupted 2 disks on me. Just sayin, problem is not necessarily macOS, but incompatiblities elsewhere.

 

[Nermal]

Apple has only responded to two [bug reports]: One of those responses was to say that the bug had been fixed (it hadn't), and one to say that it's by design (it shouldn't be*)

Just to point out how silly this is, here's my verbatim bug report:

When you quit Messages, if Maps is 'below' it in the list of recent apps, then it pops a map open.

1. Start both Messages and Maps.
2. Click the Messages window then the Maps window. This ensures that Maps is the active app and Messages is the second-most recently used.
3. Close the Maps window (but don't quit the whole Maps app).
4. Click on the Messages window to activate it.
5. Quit Messages.

Maps will then become the active app again, and it'll pop up its window without interaction.

Interestingly this only seems to happen if you quit Messages. Quitting other apps like Safari, Notes and Music doesn't trigger the issue.

And Apple's response:

We reviewed your report and determined the behavior you experienced is currently functioning as intended.

Beggars belief...

 

[FNH15]

Am I correct in understanding you upgraded from 10.14 and 10.15 directly to macOS 12?

Have you tried a clean install? I’ve seen weirdness in the past when upgrading from older macOS versions to the latest (hence upgrading every year).

 

[v0lume4]

Please let us know how reliable you find other OSs. I've considered switching from Mac OS, but I'm not confident I'll find anything better.

I’m finally back on Windows full-time after 12 years on macOS, and my only regret is that I didn’t come back sooner. I grew up on Windows though — I’ve always used it (even had a Boot Camp install on my MacBook). The window management is just top tier.

However I do believe OS preference is swayed by each individual’s workflow, however. Your mileage may vary. For example I’m so much faster getting my work done having moved back to Windows, but someone else may have a difference experience.

The hard part is finding a laptop that doesn’t have some sort of glaring flaw, however. I’m picky when it comes to laptops though so, again, your mileage may vary. I went through multiple laptops before I found one I was happy with.

 

[v0lume4]

When I was using a NeXT, there were small rounding errors in the standard C library (which popped up everywhere, such as in databases) which were never fixed during all of NeXT's existence (NeXTSTEP morphed into macOS, iOS, TVOS — we're at NeXTSTEP v 21.6.0 now AKA macOS 12.5.1). These fixes were only done when Apple turned NeXTSTEP into MacOS X and a while after that there was decent maintenance. NeXT were building all kinds of kits (such as WebKit) and new stuff, but the bottom BSD compatible stuff was completely neglected. This philosophy is now again in full view with Apple today.

Apple's OS should be robust enough to survive what you can throw at it in user space, but it isn't and that is really horrible.

Apple is very good at many things including creating new user experiences, but it is really truly horrible at running a decent maintenance of the non-shiny stuff. I've also reported many bugs. Many were never fixed. Often simply silently closed. Some survived many versions of the OS.

In France in the 1970's there was a club of 'dissatisfied Citroën CX drivers'. They did not want to drive anything but Citroën CX because of the driving experience, but the car had many problems because of sloppy engineering and design. Citroën did not fix it and these people were so enraged by the neglect, that they started a club to pressure the car company.
Citroën was hyper-innovative until roughly the late 1970's but always had weaknesses in engineering and design. Really reminds me of Apple in many ways. These days, Citroën is just all shiny marketing and gimmicks and not really technologically innovative at all anymore. Let's hope that is not where Apple is heading.

Very cool little bit of history. I didn’t know that about Citroën in the 70’s!

 

[Nermal]

The window management is just top tier.

Funny you should say that. I have to use Windows at work and I frequently mutter "when is Windows going to figure out how to deal with windows?" under my breath. I guess it all depends on what you're used to.

 

[svenmany]

Whenever software provided by Apple doesn't work, I'm just not surprised. I have such low expectations.

The cynic in me says there is not enough profit in fixing bugs. The other cynic says they are incompetent. The other cynic says they are arrogant and just don't care. What a crowd in me - really nothing good say.

 

[eicca]

I have to agree. My main computer is a Mac Pro stuck on Mojave and it’s bombproof. Never a single issue.

My M1 Air on Monterey is my portable machine, so it really only does web and iCloud things, but there are tons of little bugs that pop up all the time. I’d hate to delve into more complex tasks.

 

[v0lume4]

Funny you should say that. I have to use Windows at work and I frequently mutter "when is Windows going to figure out how to deal with windows?" under my breath. I guess it all depends on what you're used to.

Hmm. I’m specifically referring to the window snapping feature where you drag a window to the side of the screen and “snap” it to that half of the screen. The Windows key + left or right arrow also does it. Actually, if you’re interested, there’s an app someone told me about here on MacRumors that mimics this functionality. It’s called Magnet. It’s on the Mac App Store.

What issues do you have at work? I’d like to know so I can watch out for it.

edit - The taskbar in Windows too. Chefs kiss. Also, FOR THE ALLIANCE.

 

[BellSystem]

He isn't wrong. MacOS today is less polished than it would have been in 2000. There is always something that doesn't work right or some huge bug. The Apple apologists always have some "Apple does no wrong " angle to counter it with. The sad reality is that Apple doesn't have to get it right anymore. The Mac is not the main source of revenue, nor is it shipped on CD. The "release now, fix later" business model is the new standard unfortunately. Lack of competition and not caring about Mac market share means MacOS will remain a dumpster fire. It's just not a top priority. Everyone is working on questionable inclusive emojis for iOS as that is where the money is. Maybe when the iPhone revenue starts declining they will care.

 

[mxrider88]

I have been a macOS user since the first appearance of MacOS X. After the initial start, macOS became a platform that I loved not just for the experience, but for its stability and performance. I would easily have a laptop running for many months without single reboot and without problems. I am reasonably technical (having been part of a team that won an Apple Design Award once) and I know my way around the lower levels of the OS. There too I could do the things I should be able to do and 'it just worked'.

The last years, my experience has been completely otherwise and I've reached the end of the line. A few months back I decided to move my older macOS versions (one Mojave and a few macOS Catalinas) to macOS Monterey and, boy, do I wish I had never done that (in case of Mojave, I really wanted to because there were no longer security fixes).

A list of issues I encountered in various versions of Monterey:

• A 4K LG monitor that isn't recognized as 4K but as 5K. Notable: that same monitor is recognised fine on the only M1 Mac over here. Note also: I have 5 different Macs in this household, this clearly is not a hardware problem if all the Monterey x86 Macs do not recognise the monitor correctly, but the same hardware before the upgrade did, the only x86 Mac still running Big Sur does, and the M1 Mac running Monterey does.
• A monitor that directly after the 'upgrade' on a Mini was only showing black until after an SMC reset, a problem that returned a few times
• If Display user preferences are set, it might crash WindowServer making it impossible for that user to log in (log in, Window Server starts up, crashes, back to login screen). I had to go in via another user, clean out the affected user's prerefences, after which logging in was possible again (though all preferences were lost)
• Booting a system with a USB SSD attached (SanDisk) via USB ends up in a situation that the whole disk isn't seen (missing from System Info) until you physically disconnect/reconnect the drive. Two Thunderbolt drives connect fine and so does a USB RAID
• Attached wired keyboards/trackpad (all Apple) unable to wake a system from deep sleep, you need to physically disconnect/reconnect them to get them recognised
• A monitor as second monitor on an iMac. When the monitor is turned off, the main screen works but input (trackpad, keyboard) gets stuck for a half-second or so all the time.
• If you use software that allows connections from the outside and you use the Application Firewall (ALF) to protect your system, at some point using ALF meant that a certain service would stop working after a few hours because the kernel had stopped passing connections on to the software. Stopping and starting the software made it work again for a few hours. This software ran fine under Mojave and several earlier versions. It seemed that the kernel ran out of resources and that stopping and starting the software freed them. I had to stop using the firewall as a result.
• Services that are started by hand work fine, but when started via launchd are unable to reach.
• And the latest: under 12.5.1 the system suddenly freezes for all connection requests (e.g. you cannot ssh in to the system, or use ARD, etc. Nothing that requires TCP/IP it seems. Ping works, but no TCP/IP port can be reached. Most of the time, this will resolve itself after a while as if the kernel gets 'stuck' and at some point gets 'unstuck', but sometimes it doesn't and you have to hope you are logged out and can click the restart button or you have to do hard reboot. The last time an unstuck happened after an hour or so.

And this list isn't even complete. macOS Monterey 12.5.1 in my opinion is as buggy and fragile as anything I have ever had to work with in decades, and that includes older Microsoft Windows. This is now especially the case with anything having to do with sockets, ports, traffic, etc., i.e. kernel level stuff.

I have my suspicions about what may be in play here:

• Apple not spending as much energy on x86 as it does on M1 (which pisses me off as I spent thousands on all these machines)
• Apple working hard on adding security (e.g. the kernel being able to merge a read-only and writable volume into one file system, very neat, and a lot that is now connected to software being signed) but not doing a very good job at writing correct code that can handle all the different situations ('happy flow code')
• The 'unstuck' behaviour of 12.5.1 really feels like Apple has put in some stopgap measure to make sure that if the system gets stuck there is some sort of low level 'reset'. Or, Apple knows this is unreliable, but has implemented some sort of garbage collection that once in a while cleans stuff up so it starts working again

Apple has always been that weird combination of 'insane level of attention to detail' in one place and 'insane level of neglect' elsewhere. But I have to conclude that now that Monterey is at version 12.5.1 it still is buggy, fragile, unreliable. It is a P.o.J. and I am very sorry that after more than 20 years of Apple use I have to give up on ever having something as robust as it was years ago. And the history of recent versions have been that they have become worse and worse in terms of reliability over the years.

I have started to investigate moving parts of my (until now 100% Apple) landscape to another OS because the level of reliability has become so low that I have lost my confidence that it will be reliable any time soon.

No need to be reluctant my friend.
macOS if full of bugs and glitches that drag in for half a decade at least, since Yosemite was released.

 

[An-apple-a-day]

And this list isn't even complete. macOS Monterey 12.5.1 in my opinion is as buggy and fragile as anything I have ever had to work with in decades, and that includes older Microsoft Windows. This is now especially the case with anything having to do with sockets, ports, traffic, etc., i.e. kernel level stuff.

While I would agree that many long standing bugs regarding basic infrastructural/foundational stuff (without blatant outward visibility) get ignored for years, I don’t agree that Monterey 12.5.x is “buggy and fragile as anything….” I have a 2016 Intel MBP 15” running latest 12.5.1 with built-in software firewall enabled and some services running that accept incoming connections. I have a 4K external monitor connected and it works flawlessly (except sustained use with that turns bottom case near hinge into a toaster). Like with all Mojave+ releases, it’s been very reliable for me with reboots only needed for new OS updates.