I'm stuck with macOS at work and these have also been the most painful parts of the experience for me. Luckily, I recently found Rectangle[0] and InstantSpaceSwitcher[1]. The former gives keyboard based arranging (though not focus; still just use cmd+tab for that) while the latter gives instant transitions between virtual desktops (including shortcuts for navigating directly to a target, rather than sliding over sequentially).
[0]: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
[1]: https://github.com/jurplel/InstantSpaceSwitcher
Recent discussion on the latter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708818
Oh, wow, thanks for that pointer to InstantSpaceSwitcher - looks like it might help with my biggest annoyance.
I have "reduced motion" switched on, so don't get the animated transition - instead there's a brief fade, followed by a few seconds where any input is silently ignored. So, if anything, it's even shoddier.
Honestly, the modern MacOS experience feels slightly worse than Linux from 20 years ago.