I feel like now it is just a given that I’ll hook up a hub to everything.

Even my thunderbolt 4 hub / dock … has another hubs for “lesser” devices.

Yeah, I bought one of those fancy hub/stand thing that was built for the Mini, I'd still rather have then ports built it. I got greenscreen crashes for a while any time I had it plugged in, which meant I was stuck with the built in ports.

Totally understandable desire for what is supposed to be a static desktop experience.

its understandable for a laptop. I look forward to in 10 years when I no longer have a USB A device.

Can I ask what they are? And are they devices with removable cables where you could move some to a native USB-C cable instead of adapting?