But if you let the fallen leaves sit on your lawn all winter they are a matted wet mess in the spring and they kill your lawn. I blow mine to wooded areas at the edges of my property
We domisticated grazing animals since a while in large numbers, the smaller ones do produce something like a lawn. And soft grass is just really nice to play around with the kids. So I also simply keep bushes and tree spots for the leaves and insects.
Lawns aren’t native to your area. That type of grass didn’t evolve there, and it didn’t evolve to being trimmed short. That’s why it doesn’t produce seeds and why it’s killed by leaves.
Simplistic answers really work best when things are complicated philosophical questions.
You point was that lawns are not normal. My point is that lawns are completely normal, at least where I live.
Aside to what the other commentor has said, nature doea not mean static preservation, but it always changed all the time (and we are part of it).
Transplanting 'English Manor' grass and lawn practices to a desert creates an unbridgeable adaptation gap. This kind of lawn cannot survive without draining every aquifer in a 300 mile radius. Texas lawns, in particular, yearn for death, you can watch them die in real time.
Lawns that require almost no maintenance using native plants have always been possible, but they don't reflect the class and status dynamics that neighborhoods want to show off.
They'd rather have dying sickly grass most of the year, and pay yearly to to replace, than allow a single 'weed' to be a part of their landscaping.
In wild nature, there tend to be spikey things. I still run barefoot there. I don't care about status dynamics, but I do also like a soft grassy ground to jump and run around with my kids,
But I do let patches on the side grow complete, only mowing once a year - and especially before the fireflies come - I let the whole lawn grow extra high (with only some ways cut low) for the fireflies and insects. In spring the flowers are also nice. Still, some patches of nice lawn I always have and use with joy. It all is a compromise (still it greatly triggers me, if family members mow too early and too much).