This is not guessing. Here are entitlements of an app from the App Store: `% codesign -d --entitlements :- /Applications/Magnet.app    Executable=/Applications/Magnet.app/Contents/MacOS/Magnet (Omg, Apple forums unable to properly format inline code in the answer to a comment) There is no sandbox one. So Apple does make exceptions. There are other apps but I don't want to purchase them to make a point.

Most are not all. There are quite new apps without sandbox enabled. And I'm not guessing reasons, I'm asking what are those reasons. Because it all seems like "All developers are equal, but some developer are more equal than others". If Apple values developers as it says on every WWDC, it should be more clear about that.