Apologies to Tetrachloride... I must disagree.

Monterey is great... Apple indeed played around with the Safari interface a bit between Big Sur and Monterey, but they settled upon something good... They changed Safari's interface, but in Monterey's Safari 15 Preferences, choose "Preferences > Tabs > Separate" to get the familiar view. It'll be what you are used to in Big Sur and earlier.

In my opinion... It's always best to update to the latest macOS... So many of my client's tech support issues are because they haven't updated to the latest OS while software they use usually depends upon the latest releases.

Apple OS releases are well thought out and get better and better, unlike Windows updates.... Monterey is not a revolutionary update, it's an evolutionary one... Apple made what's good in Big Sur better for Monterey. Upgrade.

in the original post, I was concerned on the appearance of the new Safari 15.

However, regarding Monterey, I make it a policy to not advise an upgrade unless to XX.2. , such as 15.2 -- unless the user is completely backed up 2x. A point.1 update is insufficient experience.

I'm a member of the developer program and get the beta releases, but I'm not a developer... just a nerd... Apple tried to introduce a new kind of tab interface in Safari 15 and it didn't go over well with testers.

I dunno... I back up my files, of course... But, never found it was necessary at the end of the day for Apple OS updates. I don't do time machine or anything. I've been doing this for a while, and maybe I'm living on the edge too much. All my important stuff is stored on iCloud Drive or Dropbox... I do have a religious habit of totally erasing everything, restore my machine from factory settings, and then let my stuff download from the cloud after a refresh. I like a nice and clean machine every once and and awhile. Backups of system stuff tend to carry over a lot of old junk that is unnecessary. But, I do install every update.... Every update fixes bugs and whatnot.

However, I think you are proceeding with caution, and your advice is solid.

One ancient and one not so ancient. The ancient one got fixed ..... but there could be more.

I can't bring myself to test the second one without backups and video camera. Hopefully, someone fixed it.

mine is keeping safari from auto poping up when i boot up. safari keeps booting up during running sessions . otherwise big sur is good .

I forgot what Safari tabs looked like in Big Sur already. The classic tab Preference option is in Monterey.

Consider Monterey as a refinement to Big Sur.... But, stick with what you like, I suppose... However, you should catch up with OS updates eventually.