are you implying that OS X and later macOS are moving away from their Unix origins
Not sure what I said that led you to that conclusion. That probably needs a separate conversation which needs to address how macOS in the Apple Silicon era relies on it's Unix roots.
Most of those maintenance scripts were never relevant to normal macOS users and just left over from NeXT OS. Over the years there have been a few of those Unix routines replaced by better, more efficient coding which resulted in some scripts being completely removed or replaced by other functions.
It's been quite obvious over the last few years that at least the macOS GUI is moving closer to iOS with each new release.
I just had an example two days ago where a restart solved an issue of Spotlight not working after a macOS update, so yes, there are occasions when a restart is the best solution for an issue, just not every issue.
Al Varnell