For many years now KDE has focused on polish, bug fixing and "nice-to-have" improvements rather than major redesigns, and it paid off.
I looked at some Asahi Linux videos and it always shows KDE and the interface is Windows like (or what I call Windows like). I never liked that and that is single biggest reason I never tried KDE. I know it's Linux and KDE and GNOME can pretty much made to look like each other (i.e their default look and feel). Is it trivial on Asahi Linux or needs a lot of tweaking?
Something like what ElementaryOS would look like - look/feel/UX wise ElementaryOS has been my gold standard sine it released and the last I checked it still felt that way. But since anything other than what Asahi Linux installs and support by default, i.e. Fedora Remix, is neither recommended nor fares well on Mac so I don't think I can use ElementaryOS (which is essentially Ubuntu LTS) really. Even Asahi Linux team recommends KDE.
Also - can one access certain Mac folders in Asahi (e.g. ~/Pictures)? And is it even recommended, if it's possible (Security wise)?
(I have been exploring/searching on Asahi and I am gearing up to use it on my M1 MacBook Pro - will be using/trying Linux desktop after more than a decade)
You can recreate the layout almost perfectly. Don't try to theme it as macOS, just get the UI components in the right places using the widgets it comes with.