Apple’s displays are docks in that they supply power, usb ports, camera, sound, and recently thunderbolt pass through. They put a big chunk of an old iPad in there to run the thing. Overkill but they own the electronics and software.
Same here. My TS3 Plus is around 7 years old now and I’m still daily driving it. Haven’t experienced any issues at all and I’ve used it with various Windows/MacOS/Linux computers.
I got my TS3 after it had been out awhile and it's been great for me, also. Wonder how the current (TB5) versions are. They generally seem to take a few (?) years to really get the firmware working properly.