I've been a Mac user for about 10 years and it was never better than now, probably the opposite. Every edition had bunch of bugs I hated. Before then I regularly tested Mac for local computer magazine and it didn't look better either. I even managed to freeze Mac OSX 10.1 with first mouse click when it arrived in our lab.
Before then we had lots of fun looking at ways you could hang by that time absurdly obsolete old Mac OS....
So the golden age for me has been 2009-2015 from Snow Leopard -> Mountain Lion (trailing off steeply w/ El Capitan) and from iOS 1 - 7, w/ iOS 8, 9 introducing issues.
I rue the days I upgraded my iPhone and iPad to ios9. Both are slugs now and they don't sync with Messages on the MBP anymore.
I have a three year old MacBook, and I believe, a four year old Ipad2. I want to believe it was just the iPad and too much JavaScript, but my laptop is not what I expect from a three year laptop. That wheel is spinning way too much. Chrome brings it to unusuable, but figured it was my fault. I only have 4 gigs. Actually, I though 4 gigs would be enough?
I do not believe in buying a new computer every two years.
I always though if an evil dictator ran Apple, they could force us to by new product, but they would have to do it sly. Just enough wheel spinning, to make us buy. If Apple does that; I'm gone forever.
Actually, I've been done with new Apple products for awhile. I will just repair my older products. I still believe in the company though. I hope they don't get cute?
It wouldn't help anyway, because that damn ball spins even on new computers.
I keep getting told I'm "doing too much". Apparently a $2500 laptop should be confined to no more than a handful of concurrent Apple-approved applications and nothing more... ? (and even then, you'll still get those beach balls).
Personally, I'm on my fourth mac over the last 8 years, various models, had both spinning disk and SSD, 4, 8 and 16gigs of ram. Wife has had various macs going back to ... 2002?
I can't recall a working day go by without pauses, hangs and beachballs. And... I've had the equivalent behaviour on Windows models and Linux machines going back to at least the late 90s. :(
This is one of the things that makes me think the OS is declining.
Both work fine although iPad is indeed more slugish than it was.
But I also use an old iPod which is still on IOS4 and that isn't great either (skips certain songs/podcasts...).
I could complain about all of them, but my point is that the same was true in any previous year.