I don’t disagree with you, sadly I did not find a better fix and this was a huge pain for the way I work so it was a worthwhile choice.
OneInfiniteLoop
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[UPDATE]
So after significant troubleshooting including: Reindex via terminal
PRAM/NVRAM reset
SMC reset
Hardware test
Confirming that the issue occurs in safe boot
Reinstall macOS Big Sur via Recovery Mode
I finally gave up and fixed with the following:
Boot into Recovery Mode
Wipe the SSD via Disk Utility
Reinstall macOS Big Sur through Recovery Mode
Confirm the issue doesn't occur on a clean install (it didn't - issue was fixed)
Restore ONLY apps and documents with Migration Assistant
Issue now resolved.