Regarding a lack of start menu, I find it useful to pin the Applications folder to the dock Once pinned, right-click and set your preferred view mode, e.g. grid or stack. However this approach is limited in that it is a folder view, so will omit anything in your user's ~/Applications folder.

I enjoy macOS' maximize (fullscreen to new workspace behaviour) as I usually use it only when using a single screen with a trackpad. However, double clicking the titlebar will maximize more conventionally like Windows, Gnome or KDE.

BetterTouchTool is IMO a must have application on macOS. It supports window tiling.