> but that's not what users want.

You don't know that until you ask users. That would be a much more useful question than those boring "tour guide on first login" or "please activate cortana/copilot" or "do you want to sync to onedrive" stuff one gets notified on some major desktops.

My preference is focus follow mouse, no focus stealing on new window opening.

Well, I would want the new app to steal focus, but only if I haven't (re-)focused a different app while said app was launching.

The users are trained on their exposure to behavior in Windows, MacOS and non-ancient Linux distros. Good luck changing the expectations of the world population. I believe the GIMP tried that for a few decades.