NTFS writing isn't that inexplicable. NTFS is a proprietary filesystem that isn't at all simple to implement and the ntfs-3g driver got there by reverse engineering. Apple doesn't want to enable something by default that could potentially corrupt the filesystem because Microsoft could be doing something unexpected and undocumented.
Meanwhile if you need widespread compatibility nearly everything supports exFAT and if you need a real filesystem then the Mac and Windows drivers for open source filesystems are less likely to corrupt your data.
I'll take ntfs-3g over the best implementation of exFAT in a heartbeat. Refusing to write to NTFS for reliability purposes, and thereby pushing people onto exFAT, is shooting yourself in the foot.
At which point you're asking why Apple doesn't have default support for something like ext4, which is a decent point.
That would both get you easier compatibility between Mac and Linux and solve the NTFS write issue without any more trouble than it's giving people now because then you'd just install the ext4 driver on the Windows machine instead of the NTFS driver on the Mac.
Is it that easy to use on Windows these days? I should give it a try.
Apple is likely to be in the position to negotiate nrfs documentation access with Microsoft for a clean-room implementation, with NDAs and everything.
My money is on apple not having the will to do thar.