I largely agree with your points, but in this context -
* A microsoft account is only needed for Windows 11 Home. A "semi-power user" is hopefully not using that edition of Windows...
* I'm also greatly annoyed by the right click - but holding shift when right-clicking opens the expected menu, removing the extra click requirement.
Some of my own annoyances though:
* The taskbar/windows button seems to just...crash...sometimes. It'll eventually restart, but extremely annoying. Left clicking taskbar icons still works, but right clicks or the start button don't work as expected.
* Additional clicks to change audio devices...drives me crazy on my main system.
* I like the autosaving aspect of notepad, but they've killed the main reason I used it - an instantaneous, lightweight text app. It's still quick, but is noticeably slower.
* Settings and Control Panel is still a mess, and even less usable than Windows 10 was.
> * A microsoft account is only needed for Windows 11 Home. A "semi-power user" is hopefully not using that edition of Windows...
Both Home and Pro require Microsoft account to install and start using. Then you can create local only users in both editions and delete user joined to Microsoft account. This is standard operation even in OEM installs.
Pro does not. We only use Pro and Enterprise, and Pro certainly does not actually require a Microsoft account (as of last week, anyways). The options given do make it appear to be required, but it is not.
Neither Home nor Pro really require a MS account. You can skip that during setup (for example with "bypassNRO"). This might change in the future, but as of 25H2 the workarounds still work.
This is the ISO I used, which, according to the MS website[1], is still the latest right now: Win11_25H2_English_x64.iso (SHA256: D141F6030FED50F75E2B03E1EB2E53646C4B21E5386047CB860AF5223F102A32)
I installed it offline in a VM, Home edition, US region. Shift+F10, oobe\bypassnro worked (with a warning/error at some step, but the local account was created fine). I read somewhere that it doesn't work if you connect to the internet during setup (which is always a bad idea IMO).
* A microsoft account is only needed for Windows 11 Home. A "semi-power user" is hopefully not using that edition of Windows...
* I'm also greatly annoyed by the right click - but holding shift when right-clicking opens the expected menu, removing the extra click requirement.
Some of my own annoyances though:
* The taskbar/windows button seems to just...crash...sometimes. It'll eventually restart, but extremely annoying. Left clicking taskbar icons still works, but right clicks or the start button don't work as expected.
* Additional clicks to change audio devices...drives me crazy on my main system.
* I like the autosaving aspect of notepad, but they've killed the main reason I used it - an instantaneous, lightweight text app. It's still quick, but is noticeably slower.
* Settings and Control Panel is still a mess, and even less usable than Windows 10 was.