Create workspaces per functionality on Sierra

Yes, absolutely. To create additional User Accounts please read macOS Sierra: Set up users, guests, and groups on your Mac. That is what you should do when a Mac is to be used by more than one individual.

Perhaps you might take a look at using Mission Control's multiple workspace feature.

First fire up all the apps you want.

Now, use the F3 function key to show all current apps as icons, along with a "Desktop" icon at top and a "+" icon on the top right corner. Clicking the "+" icon will create another "workspace" icon along the top next to the existing "Desktop" workspace (which gets a new name of "Desktop 1" now that you have multiple workspaces), named "Desktop 2", and once again click the "+" icon to create workspace named "Desktop 3", etc, for as many workspaces as you wish. You can have up to 16 workspaces, but don't create any more than you really need, as they all use memory and system resources.

Now you can click and drag all the app icons from the lower portion of the screen to the desired workspace. Keep in mind that if an app has more than one window associated with it (for example if you have three Terminal windows), then you need to drag all three of them if you wish them to be in the same workspace, or perhaps you might want a Terminal window in each workspace.

There are other ways to set these workspaces up, but this is simple to describe and understand (I hope so anyway). Now that you have things setup the way you wish, then you merely use the F3 fucnction key to go to the desired workspace you wish, by merely clicking the desired Desktop number icon at the top of the screen. You can still use Command+tab key to cycle between apps, but that will also implicitly move to the workspace that the application is a part of.

It's very handy once you get used to it and once it's set up the operating system will remember where things went if you log out and back in or reboot the system or shut it down.

There are some other special things you can do once things are set up. You can have the same window appear in only one workspace or in all of them (but not unfortunately in two or three). Merely right-click (or control-click if you don't have right-click enabled) on an app icon in the Dock that has a black dot below it (which indicates there is a running copy of that app). You get a menu that has an item named "Options" and if you highlight that, then you get another flyout menu showing several things. The three bottoms one say "All Desktops" and "This Desktop" and "None", with the last one named "None" having a checkmark by it. You can click on either of the "All Desktops" to say you want that app to appear in all desktops, or click on "This Desktop" to have the app appear in only the current desktop. You can see which desktop workspace is current by typing the F3 function key and looking at the list of workspaces at the top of the screen and seeing which one of them is highlighted - that's the current workspace that "This Desktop" is referring to.

Like I mentioned, there are multiple ways to setup the workspace desktops, this is only one of them. Perhaps others might have other suggested methods and techniques, but the end result is that you can have the system setup to reflect an organization scheme that makes the most sense to you.

You can get a lot more info by consulting Apple's explanation of workspaces at https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25574

Good luck...

Certain System Preferences are system-wide while others are user-specific, so there is no easy way to "copy and paste" an entire set of them.

And why preferences aren't stored by iCloud

Some users of this site complain that iCloud already does too much and want nothing to do with it, while others complain it doesn't do enough. I find iCloud indispensable with certain features, but intrusive with others. Some are all or nothing. Apple can't please everyone.

Something you can try. Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist. Copy the .plist to your desktop and then move it to the hard drive level Users/Shared folder. Log in as another user and copy it to the above location. Check the file permissions to make sure the user can access it. Open System Preferences and check.

Well, not sure what you're trying to accomplish then.

If you want to copy Finder preferences to other users, you can do that fine. This will save you the effort of changing everything for each user. If this is what you want say so and will tell you how.

But it won't let you run lots of applications at the same time without using lots of CPU cycles and using lots of memory and all the heat that maxing out CPU's generate which causes fans to run to keep the computer cool so it doesn't melt - there's no free ride if you want to do a lot of things at once.

Am I correct in assuming that you're willing to have multiple users and each have a different set of apps they run and then you just log out of one user and in as another user to set things up? I'm also guessing you want to have the same set of apps started up every time you login as that user?

All possible, but I'm just guessing. So can you elaborate further?

Good luck...