https://i.imgur.com/qbUy5aH.png (from an ancient WWDC slide mocking the Windows approach.)
They may have overdone it in a few cases, and not done anything where it's really needed (like a unified list of all third-party startup items, such as Google’s sneaky Keystone malware, or seeing all outgoing data and connection attempts like Little Snitch shows), but as other commenters have mentioned, it lets me catch various apps overreaching into my computer for things they just don't need to function, and I definitely appreciate that.
Another thing I wish they would do is provide an infallible way to verify system password request dialogs. Not long ago DropBox used to show you a fake dialog that then stole your administrator password. There should be a list inside System Preferences where you can go and see all the authentic password request dialogs that are currently being shown.
In short, they should move away from nagging to better monitoring and reporting.