Why does this seem like such a hard problem to solve for everyone that isn’t Apple, when Apple seemingly solved the Trackpad over a decade ago? Is this it? An unknown ROI? >the highly uncertain ROI for trying to align touchpad acceleration has prevented us from proposing a system change to the default Linux settings. I can only speak for myself, but I gave up using trackpads on anything that isn’t a MacBook many year…
The circle of enshittification, plain and simple.
Windows itself is the worst culprit, given that it took until (IIRC!) Windows 10 to arrive at a sensible gesture API and before that it was a hit-and-miss involving custom drivers for every model and barely any unification for gestures.
That in turn led to software for Windows never even utilizing the benefit of multitouch, and so in turn hardware manufacturers weren't pushed either because why invest effort when it's useless anyway?
On top of that, hardware build quality sucks on everything Windows. It's almost exclusively really small (i.e. half a cigarette pack) touchpads, recessed 2mm or more into the hardware, and full plastic that stains after less than half a year of moderate usage. In contrast, MacBooks ship with touchpads literally larger than the hands of someone who has worked in construction, and they're made out of glass that is nearly flush with the casing, so no dirt or anything even has a chance of accumulating.
(I don't even care about Linux at that point, where the hot mess of display drivers, window managers, UI frameworks and whatnot makes the complexity of "getting it right" even worse)