To be fair, nobody actually NEEDS to deal with this nonsense. Windows works just fine without an activated key, literally the only downside is the "Please activate Windows" bug on your desktop. That's it, everything else works fine.
Not exactly, can't customize it either or change certain settings. I know this because I just built a new PC and the key I had didn't work for 2 days while I had support figure it out.
Absolutely, it's not the worst. I had a client who had me rebuild their work pc for them and the key they gave me didn't work. They never ended up bothering getting it to work since it was a work pc and didn't really care if they could change the background or theme. This was Win 10, I think 11 has a few more settings locked out but it's not bad really.
I did recently and have regrets yet . Been using to run yuzu perfectly and most games I've tried work great other than some games that use certain anti cheats . Going to work on RGB control soon once I have time. And I have a windows VM to adjust the controls easily on my mouse and gaming keypad which I almost never need to change.