I'm genuinely curious what you hate about Finder. What makes you think it tries to pretend that there is no file system?
I personally love Miller Columns and the lack of them in any other file browser is one of many things keeping me from switching to Linux. Navigating my entire file system just with arrow keys feels like a breeze.
If I remember correctly, Windows 95 opened a new window for every folder you clicked on. I recall very messy desktops on being five levels deep.
Have you gave ranger file manager a try for miller column layout? It's a cli which you can enable drag and drop for files, and the vim keybindings for navigation and copy/pasting, plus the file preview makes it an awesome choice for moving around quickly.
I personally love Miller Columns and the lack of them in any other file browser is one of many things keeping me from switching to Linux. Navigating my entire file system just with arrow keys feels like a breeze.
If I remember correctly, Windows 95 opened a new window for every folder you clicked on. I recall very messy desktops on being five levels deep.