I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue rather than the tablet itself, and wouldn't mind taking another punt at it.
When I was a prof, I used the Wacom on linux with OpenBoard [1] to teach online for two years of the pandemic. My work gave me a Macbooks, but OpenBoard has some weird bugs on MacOS. So I am using GoodNotes, which is very annoying, but the best of what I tried. In another life, I would dedicate a few years of my life writing a decent note taking app.
[1] https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard
Edit: Besides the software, I think it takes a few weeks of writing on it daily where it becomes natural.
I have a Wacom Intuos S.
Sample size 1, but I haven't been inconvenienced by its size, even while handwriting or drawing at Krita.
On one hand, I don't think a thought like "this would be easier with a bigger tablet" has ever crossed my mind; but on the other hand, it's also true that I haven't tried anything bigger, so my only point of comparison is tablet vs mouse or tablet vs whiteboard/notebook.
The surface of the tablet is mapped to your screen in terms of input. The Intuos M is just a bit smaller than 13 inch laptop screens. So what you see on the screen is roughly the same size as what you draw with your hand. Additionally, while writing at normal pen/paper size, my hand moves comfortably from the left of the tablet to the right as I write across the whole screen.
If I had to use a Intuos S, then I imagine, I would have to write a lot smaller with my hand, but then have it appear as bigger on the screen. But my hand would not move a lot, and making tiny characters would tire my hand out faster. I think my brain would get used to it, but it will still be a jump.
Only in absolute mode though. If you switch it to relative mode though, then it's a bit more flexible.
Contour drawing is not taught in primary education, and it really should be: it generalizes on how you learned to write by learning some muscle memory and then playing it back to make a mark. Nobody who can write should be going around saying "I'm untalented at art, I can't even draw a straight line".
>I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue
Depends on whether you want shape/diagram recognition or not. If the only thing you need is free-form drawing, you can use just about anything.
I will try it on linux later. Hopefully it will work there.
My initial gripe is that there are three different toolbars, all separated from each other. I want to change tools and their settings quickly, not move my hand across the entire screen. For example, select brush tool on bottom toolbar, select size on the left toolbar, then select color on the top toolbar.
Best thing is that they have a plugin architecture that can do some basic customization.