I learned on 120mm (what’s now called medium format). When I was introduced to 35mm cameras, I found their relative simplicity and lightness ‘oddly satisfying’. :-) And a built in match-needle spot meter was pretty cool

The downside was a loss in resolution — but I wasn’t making big prints. Bright side was that lenses were a good bit cheaper. At the time, primes were dramatically better than teles…

FWIW, waist level finders were a common feature in 35mm cameras then, as well. My first SLR (an Exacta) had a removable/swappable pentaprism-viewfinder and waist level finder. I don’t still have that camera as I broke it falling off a mountain, but I’ve recently hefted other copies — and they were remarkably heavier than my current D750s. I still have a couple of Topcons (hey, my Exacta lenses fit!), and, if anything, they’re heavier than the Exacta.

I was/am more of a landscape guy than a street shooter or portraitist, but I agree that a focal plane shutter (and mirror mechanism) is way too noisy for the street and using a camera up to your face does feel invasive — but many ILCs have a flip-out panel- which you can use as a waist-level finder— or even with the camera overhead.