> it’s not even possible if you’re not using a qwerty keyboard

Well… it used to be possible.

I was using an AZERTY keyboard in my youth, and was definitely able to switch windows using cmd-< and/or cmd->. (I just tried, it is indeed not possible anymore as per my limited testing, for some reason…)

> Separating cmd+tab and cmd+backtick is moronic

Not for my taste. I like the app-centric worldview. I can understand that not everybody does though.