So the title should be something more like "macOS apps retain access to folders after access is removed by the user".

Nope. The user is not revoking the access that they granted. They are revoking general access to a folder, but since there is no way to revoke specific access nothing happens.

Its both. They can never revoke access to a folder they opened/selecte in the app UI, and aren't notified that the app has permanent access.

But also, once they've explicitly granted access, and then implicitly granted access to the same folder, disabling explicit access changes nothing.