Try this: Instead of thinking "Boo, they took away part of the screen with a notch" think "Yay! They extended the screen a few mm on either side of the camera"
If you want to join us in the cult of Mac, learning little contortions like that will make you a lot happier.
I remember naively asking on the Mac forums once, whether there was any way to have the laptop lid closed in Mac OS without putting the laptop to sleep.
Of course not, I was told. Apple's laptops use a superior thermal design, which could damage the laptop if the lid is closed while it's left running. Who would want to do that anyway? Better to have good cooling.
I didn't even bother to reply and mention the fact that my Windows install on the same laptop allowed it without complaint.
For whatever it's worth, I've run my MacBook Pros in "clamshell" mode (e.g., lid closed, connected to an external monitor and keyboard) all the time -- I did it with every work Mac laptop I've had and with my personal one back when I was using it as a desktop. I know there's lots of "never do this with a MacBook it will overheat!" advice out there, but it was just never an issue for me, and this was across enough different devices and generations that I don't think I was just consistently lucky. Are you describing something else, e.g., closing the laptop lid without connecting an external display and preventing it from going to sleep?
I never had an issue with that when I was using Windows work laptops, either, except that I recall both ThinkBooks that I had seemed to have about a 50% chance of a full kernel panic style crash when I unplugged the external display. This was back when ThinkBook was an IBM brand, though, and IIRC I was running Windows XP on both.
This was back around 2012, and it looks like not sleeping when the lid is closed is officially an option in the power settings now, so it sounds like things have changed. Although I don't think overheating was ever a real problem in the first place. With my 2012 MacBook Pro when the screen is closed, the air from the vents can still escape out behind the screen.
I remember clamshell mode working in 2006. Didn’t use it much though, was afraid it would fry my Macbook Pro. You could boil an egg on the first Intel Macbook Pros.
This was in around 2012, maybe attitudes have changed. This isn't my thread, but shows what responses to the question were like at the time: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2805582
You only have to go a few responses into that thread to get an explanation that the action of closing the lid will trigger sleep, but an external keyboard and mouse will wake it back up, allowing for the machine to be used while closed. You may not have originally intended to make the distinction between having the lid closed vs. the process of closing the lid, but it's clearly the former you were worried about, and that use case has always been supported.
But it takes the menu bar space, which is already scarce even without the notch. Some people may have many app icons and "widgets" (e.g. iStat Menus) on the menu bar.
If you want to join us in the cult of Mac, learning little contortions like that will make you a lot happier.