The large attack surface is a good point. I started using it initially and the ease of setting up a vpn was nice, but then I came across few security vulnerability postings which led to concern so I went to Wireguard. I think they should reign in the features and treat it as a secure vpn first and foremost and remove unnecessary features to minimize the attack surface.
If you want a hard-to-use VPN with minimal features and minimal surface area, as you said, Wireguard is right there. Tailscale is convenient Wireguard.
I use Wireguard for several site-to-site VPNs. It just works. I never have to worry about it, and there are very few configuration settings to mess up (unlike, say, IPsec, which is a nightmare.)
You do realise that of all the security tools on the planet, plain wireguard most likely has the smallest attack surface of them all, right ?
The problem here is as the other poster said. Tailscale is a security tool and yet the guys at Tailscale seem to be insistent on dumping everything INCLUDING the kitchen sink into it as a "feature".
That sort of attitude is not going to end well. You end up with a large bloated code base, which equals large attack surface.
I use it but feel uncomfortable, that it has large attack surface and LLMs will find exploits in it.
Without taillock it makes no sense. Anyone on their coordination servers will be able to connect to your network.