Mounting a network share is beyond the usage scope of the DAU you describe. They need a functional default desktop environment, working standard drivers for their standard hardware, and a browser. That’s pretty much it.
And let’s not pretend there’s anything intuitive about Windows distinguishing between accessing a network share, and mounting it as a virtual drive. This is just the staying power of “whatever I’m used to from an age when I had the curiosity and patience to figure stuff out”.
I am not upset in the slightest. Maybe I should have made that clear. By all means voice away! It’s just like I said, Windows benefits heavily from us learning its quirks when we had the time and patience to do so, and with much lower standards than today. The comparison doesn’t seem all that helpful as a result.