Is there any point to a clean install?

Cartoonguy wrote:

Using a Mac Studio and have been having problems with external drives ejecting randomly and other issues including periodic system crashes, which was really rare before I moved from my older iMac to my Studio, so I'm thinking something is wrong. Like today I just noticed that my Time Machine back up was not even online for a week!! The ejecting is not limited to one drive and I fear it is also corrupting the drive as I get the message that it was not ejected properly.

Inclined to clean things up using by doing a clean install, but read online that with Ventura and M1 Macs, there is no need, because...

Should I do a clean install on my Mac?

In the past it was helpful to reinstall the system if you wanted to correct some Mac problems, but today this solution doesn’t make as much sense. 

Since macOS Big Sur, macOS has its home on its own volume, which is both read-only and cryptographically signed and sealed (referred to as a Sealed System Volume). This seal is stored either in the T2 chip of the newer Intel Macs or in the Secure Enclave of the Apple M1/M2.

Each component of the system is signed in hierarchical order, and any change to a component would also invalidate the seal that represents the top level. For further security, these Macs also do not start directly from the system volume, but from a snapshot of the system. And snapshots cannot be changed, even by the system itself. So macOS itself cannot be changed by any software that you install as a user.

Full article is here.

Ironically enough, except for the part you quoted, that article is pretty good.

In theory, you could erase just the data volume and leave the system volume intact. However, the data volume still contains lots of system software, the overall structure of the file system, and all of the databases and persistence files that define the computer's configuration.

A "clean install" or a "factory-fresh" install is actually more useful these days than ever. Lots of 3rd party software is very difficult to uninstall. In many cases, the easiest way to uninstall it is to erase the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. The only trick is to avoid restoring all of the data. You can restore your user files and user accounts, but that's all. Don't restore any apps, software, or "other files". That would restore the software you were trying to remove in the first place.