I wouldn’t say I work with files a lot, but when I do, Finder seems to work ‘fine’. What do you find ‘appalling’ about it? If I’m missing the option to make my life much easier by using an alternative I’d like to at least try something else out.
GUIs are meant to be simple for discovering features. I really dislike how Apple hides away all the useful features. It doesn’t need to be this way and it makes working with macOS a real pain in the arse.