I'm going to focus on my experience, instead of addressing anything about your situation.

I use two computers. A Fedora Linux workstation and a M1 Macbook Pro. I've been using Linux daily for about 15 years and macOS daily for about 10. My experience will be highly subjective, and it's rare to talk about them without striking up a debate.

I could very feasibly only use my MBP. It could do all of my workloads. I choose to have a Linux desktop and use it as my primary computing device because I prefer working on Linux. This is something I pay extra for because I get more joy and experience less frustration from using Linux than macOS. The reason I choose to own a MBP is because I think Apple makes the best laptop hardware. The Apple silicon chips generation of MBPs are easily my favorite. I find it really convenient to have the ability to compute somewhere that is not my desk. If Linux had the same level of support for Apple hardware as macOS has, I would not use macOS.

A lot of skills used in Linux will transfer over to macOS. The biggest ones are the command line. Homebrew and Ports are both capable package managers and will have most of the tools you need. I personally find APT/RPM to be both faster and more complete, but I have no data to back this up. Your bash scripts, python workflows, or whatever will mostly be intact. Anything operating on the OS layer will probably be broken, and you might be surprised about some command line applications missing in macOS because they relay on OS layer. I can make macOS work for me here, and do real development on it, but find Linux to be slightly more comfortable and full of features. iterm2 is a great terminal emulator for macOS.

For the GUI userspace I find I still prefer the Linux options after years of exposure to macOS. I feel limited in my options for basic tools like file managers or clipboards. Many applications will try to do things in a certain style I refer to as "the mac way". It's fine, and easy to get use to. I feel it often leads to too many files in my desktop folder or Applications folder for my taste. Some tools, like firefox or emacs feel largely the same where the only differences are the areas in which the tool interacts with the OS layer. I am sometimes pleased to see that commercial software has better macOS support than Linux support, and I will rarely use macOS for specific software unavailable on Linux.

On the OS layer of things, macOS generally has better stability and simpler upgrades than desktop Linux. I do like the iCloud integration, and find the MBP to be more in sync with my iPhone than my Linux desktop. I find the security and permissions layer of macOS to be more focused on non-expert users than Linux is. I am often asked to confirm before running binaries, and occasionally have to go into system settings to give an application specific permissions. The operating system is also very protective of some folders, and will ask for user permission before writing to what I would consider user-space folders. I find this is type of thing is generally tending towards being more annoying over time.

I tend to think macs are a decent value. They are the highest quality laptop built, and operating one feels like it takes less system maintenance than a Linux laptop would. It seems like they often charge more for ram and storage than you would expect on a Linux system, so I focus on my actual needs more on my laptop. I spend about $3000 for a MBP and $3000 for a Linux workstation, and fully upgrade both about every 3 years. I could go much longer between upgrades. I could use cheaper computers too. These are tools that get thousands of hours of use each, and am happy to pay a premium for tools I enjoy using. I usually donate my old computers to family members. They usually receive a long lifespan of use. The Linux desktops seem to receive longer periods of use, because teenagers will upgrade a few parts and use them as gaming PCs.