I'm surprised reading this thread how many people download 3rd party tools for compression. 15+ years developing on macs and I've never needed to add anything special (beyond tar/gz). Guess I don't (de)compress enough to notice?
This was like... 1999 to 2005ish, so definitely feeling my "elder millennial" status.
I used a MacSE in college (1987) and then started using them again professionally in 2008.
Mac OS X was released in 2001. The "Classic" environment was removed with the transition to x86 in 2006
Fifteen years ago was 2009. You never had the need because you came to the platform long after the transitions that made Stuffit--an absolute essential in the late eighties through the early 2000s--not relevant.