What interest does a New Yorker or Californian have in owning 86% of Nevada? Why shouldn't the citizens of the state in question have the right to manage that land for the purposes they deem important?
Your point is specious. Governments control arbitrary boundaries. You want "state" control over lands where it suits you, but the point could work in reverse too: why not county control? Someone's got to own it, and in this particular case that was land managed by the federal government before Nevada was a state, and in fact before "Nevadans" even existed as a meaningful population.
This is in other contexts known as "imperialism".
I've never heard Ranchers request the opportunity to purchase the land. They just want to use it as if they owned it.
But surely the state government, rather than the federal government?
Eventually the feds decide to organize a state in that area. The day Congress passes the bill of statehood, who owns the land? The new state? Only if the bill of statehood said that the land transferred.
I think you are talking about the fluidity of borders and lands worldwide. In reality, country borders are based on if land can be defended from other claimants (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AivEQmfPpk). This is the final arbitration, even after exploring existing treaties (which arent always followed, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbKNlFcg02c). The idea that the US federal government owns land until it's disseminated is one of those american myths that the US Govt tries REALLY hard to let alone, despite most federal lands being originally acquired by fiat and in the last 200 years by eminent domain (sometimes a front for private parties like the railway barons). Almost any private vs federal case can raise issues that can be elevated to the supreme court where the USG has a lot more to lose, regardless of the outcome. So they make lots of small steps, wisely. When they run into a case, even if they lose, the USG will simply work around the small setback.
Creating a state is also a one-way transition in the United States; incorporating a territory as a state is a way to ensure that the territory will never be traded away or declared independent.
there is no right or wrong here. The current situation is just the result of the most recent applications of force on that issue - with Indians in particular loosing in those "applications of force", and until bigger force gets involved it will stay about the same. That is how human race has so far been managing the surface of this planet, or any other resource...
How much of that 86% have always been public (federal) lands, and how much of that was "seized?"
What's good for the environment and wildlife is typically also good for humanity.