Still have a machine running 7. It is fast, terribly insecure due to not being updated for all the Spectre type attacks, and rock solid.
I do some development on it, and it holds a license for super expensive software that would cost me a ton to move.
Of course it is not online!
When I log on, I sigh. 7 was a good OS. 10 is now a pretty good OS.
I said all these things about an XP machine I still have. Same story.
Logging onto the XP machine makes me happy I moved to 7.
Logging onto the 7 machine makes me wonder some, mostly about how nerfed CPUs are often these days...
There is a pattern:
Near the end of a good OS, it ends up being a great OS! Setting security aside, the right XP stack is nice. The right 7 stack is really nice and fast.
Right now, I am damn happy with Win 10...
I probably will not use 11, until I absolutely have to.
Such is the way of Microsoft OSes.
My experiences have been more mixed on Mac OS. Mostly, I end up camping on one, say 10.4, I think. Has been a while, but that Mac, an Intel i7, 2012 model, is a great computer! Love it.
My next Mac ended up being an M1 machine, and I liked Big Sur a lot. Just updated to latest. Once I settle in, that is probably what I will run for a very long time, unless something is really compelling, or somehow I am forced due to a requirement of some kind and meeting it makes me enough money worth doing that.
Essentially, I get one all sorted out, end up skilled and fast. At that point, cost of change is generally way more than the reward.
Risks get managed down. Keep machines off line, limit their scope of use to those things that make good money, and so on...
Same goes for hardware. I prefer to buy higher end, plan on running it for a really long time.
Hate new hardware / OS setup and "teething", robot the experience into somewhat appropriate terms. (Appropriate for me anyway, YMMV)
11 looks like the others. Will be a mess for a while yet. Not interested, until I have to be, or it pays to be.