Can you explain what you mean by “literal dumpster fire” because this doesn’t align with my own experience. I’ve used it for purchasing a number of apps recently and I saw nothing eyebrow-raising. So long as the app you want has been uploaded to the store, it works perfectly fine.
That’s true of pretty much any App Store that isn’t strictly invitation only. If you have an app follows Apple’s rules, it gets listed. Whereas Steam, by comparison, exercises editorial control over all of its content. The solution for a better Mac App Store would require Apple to be similarly dictatorial about content.
In that sense I agree with you; personally I think it was a mistake of Apple to have the Mac App Store so closely mirror the iOS App Store. They should have made it a more aggressively curated experience.