I thought that way too (even having gone to tiling windows managers), but gnome is fine and way usable than macOS. The few applications where I use the menu still have it, and so far I’m only using one extension (for clipboard managememt).
The menu bar is a useful pattern, but a lot of applications don't need it. Especially if the focus is on a single task. In this case it's preferable to have a few buttons that are always useful, a handful of options tucked away, and a settings dialog for configuring the behavior of the software. And for the software that don't fit in this category (LibreOffice, GIMP, Audacity,...), they can still have the menu bar.
The menu bar isn't obtrusive, but for a lot of software, it's just quick access to common settings (VLC).
Fine is how I describe most things which are disappointing me.
There's just no reason given the architecture of it that the hamburger menus shouldnt be toggleable to just be menu bars. And menubars were a perfectly good solution for mouse interaction.