> defaults of hiding all windows for an application behind it's icon in the dock never made sense to me

Not that it's a better workflow, but macOS does make a distinction between hidden and minimized. You can "hide" an app, and all windows will be hidden, only the dock icon showing. Minimize will move that specific window into a separate area onto the dock since macOS treats apps & windows as separate entities.

What I absolutely hate though is you can cmd+tab and bring out a hidden app (but it restores all of its windows which drives me nuts), but you can't for a minimized app without holding option before releasing the keys.