[Tmpod]

I'm not sure I understand what you're describing but I believe Plasma and Dolphin work like that. If you drag and drop a file into a program it will select that file (if it expects a dropped file) or paste the path. You can also drag and drop files inside Dolphin itself to move or copy stuff around. I think what's confusing you is that, by default, it doesn't assume a move and prompts you to pick between that and copy, and you can force the choice and prevent the prompt by holding a key while dragging. You can, however, change this behavior in the settings to instead mimick Windows explorer.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[iraqmtpizza]

It may be gnome (which is even worse). But if you're correct about the setting to change the behavior, then this is a non-default (setting) of a non-default (desktop environment) in Ubuntu. A really unfortunate situation.

I am skeptical about the claim that KDE's file explorer supports dropping files onto any part of a file path e.g. three levels up in one go, but if you say so.