I don’t disagree with you, sadly I did not find a better fix and this was a huge pain for the way I work so it was a worthwhile choice.

[UPDATE] So after significant troubleshooting including: Reindex via terminal PRAM/NVRAM reset SMC reset Hardware test Confirming that the issue occurs in safe boot Reinstall macOS Big Sur via Recovery Mode I finally gave up and fixed with the following: Boot into Recovery Mode Wipe the SSD via Disk Utility Reinstall macOS Big Sur through Recovery Mode Confirm the issue doesn't occur on a clean install (it didn't - issue was fixed) Restore ONLY apps and documents with Migration Assistant Issue now resolved.