There are limitations to the UNIX permissions model but we're not going to improve on them by making user-friendliness the main goal.

OP was posting about how they were trying to set up a backup drive, but they've already given away in so saying that they are more confident with their PC than 90% of users, who would never try to format their own backup drive.

UNIX permissions model is explicitly based around the idea that you have herds of clueless users who need to be hand-held by a sysadmin who actually knows how the system works. Because that's pretty much how it's always been. The idea that users would be admining their own systems without also being sysadmins just wasn't part of the plan.

FWIW I agree that it's out of date but it's a deeply ingrained aspect of how Linux does things. Obsoleting it is not a simple question.