How to let windows 11 "never combine taskbar buttons"?

When developing Windows 11, Microsoft rewrote the taskbar on modern XAML code and is now classed as part of the UWP. The downside to modernizing the taskbar is that it was built from the ground up and only the absolutely critical parts were included with the initial release of Windows 11. This was a controversial decision but a necessary one for modernizing the operating system in the long-haul.

Microsoft appears to have worked on implementing "Drag 'n' Drop" to the new taskbar, and the feature was available as part of the legacy taskbar and for example, allowed people to drag a file from File Explorer to an image editor like GIMP. This is expected to return with the release of Windows 11 (version 22H2 (or as I like to say Windows 11 Update 1.))

As for features like separate taskbar buttons and changing the location of the taskbar, Microsoft reportedly see legacy features, like those, as unimportant, and whilst not ruled out for future releases, they won't be prioritised/worked on in any meaningful way for the foreseeable future.

The best alternative is Start11 from Stardock but it is a paid for app and the more advanced functions like those you speak of were only just in a beta stage the last time I checked so currently your best bet is to stick with the default experience as whilst not perfect it is mostly stable compared with a third-party beta release, and having trialled their aforementioned product in the recent past, I must say their stable releases do feature bugs and other limiting issues. However, never say never to a first or third-party solution!

I hope this clears things up for you! All the best.