Dear Kappy,
I had tried the following first 7 steps as indicated in your recommendation to trouble shoot the issue of my MacBook pro not shutting down as prompted but the same situation persisted resulting on coming online into the Apple Communities.
Alas I found the problem prior to proceeding onto the following Step 8 onwards on trouble shooting procedure as that would entail a substantial task ahead.
The solution implemented was unusual and more of a lucky attempt but it also help to solve the issue of my MacBook Pro overheating whereby the right side of the notebook starts to heat up profusely and the fan begins to go on overdrive and very audible.
I conducted a check on the Activity Monitor and found a 'kav' process activity which persistently took up a very sizeable amount of the CPU ie 65% or more.
I trace the kav files and deleted all the related files as 'kav' was a supposed a kaspersky anti virus programme but it could also be a malware impersonating as part of kaspersky.
I then proceeded to close the MacBook Pro down using the usual prompt command a few times and it worked without a glitch and the notebook had also no longer overheats hence the fan no longer goes into overdrive.
I have yet to update the macOS to Catalina as I don't think that would be an issue now as it should be able to restart without the kav files or malware around.
I have read in the numerous chats in Apple Communities about the update to macOS Catalina whereby certain functions would no longer apply from macOS Mojave and was wondering whether the update is necessary as the MacBook Pro model is dated mid-2014 and I was thinking on upgrading to the latest model.
However on a common problem I had encountered on both my former MacBook and MacBook Pro is the internal built-in speakers whereby both are so-called damaged (ie- made inaudible, lots of crackling sound on base) likely by the exhaust fans located beside within the slot allocated.
I had resorted to having an external bluetooth speaker in place of the in-built speakers which solves the sound problem.
The latest models of the MacBook and MacBook Pro have the in-built speakers visibly located above at both left and right sides of keypad surface which isn't very pleasant to view but such decisions by Apple would clearly indicate that they were aware of such problems based on the placements of the in-built speakers in the older models and various attempts to address this matter had failed (as both my MacBooks) whereby Apple opted for the easy way out at the expenses of the overall asthetics of the latest MacBook Pro.
However there were not much discussion or issues relating to this issue within the Apple Communities.
What are you thoughts on this issue ?
PS: I would still likely purchase the latest MacBook Pro (upon having sufficient funds) as I won't have to endure the same damaged speakers issue on the latest model (fingers crossed)...
Best Regards.