There's a lot to unpack here, but the most telling statement is:
> I have been using Outlook and Word 2016
9 years is a LONG time in the computer world. A lot has changed, and some of what you may be experiencing may just be that a 9-year old app isn't keeping up with the times.
That said...
> As a result of this crash, I lost a lot of my emails on Outlook
This just shouldn't happen. If you're using IMAP-based accounts (such as gmail or iCloud), or Exchange-based accounts (Outlook-native), then all the mail information is stored on the central server, so should be immune to local disruption, re-installs, etc.
The exception to this is if you're using the old POP-based mail accounts, where the mail is all stored on your local system, but this has almost universally been usurped by IMAP (but may be a facet of the 9-year old setup you had...)
> in the last few days, I have noticed that when I go to close Outlook, it takes a long time to actually close
This is worrisome, especially without knowing more about the setup and what it's doing (or trying to do) in this time. It may be hard to troubleshoot and diagnose this, though.
> I always feel that Microsoft Outlook is more compatible with the rest of the world’s emails. If I’m wrong, I am open to correction
Outlook is certainly best if you're only talking to other Outlook/Exchange-based users, and is common in corporate/enterprise environments. Like the rest of the Microsoft stack, though, it falls short when dealing with multiple users in a non-exclusively-Microsoft world (ever tried running a Teams meeting with Mac and Linux-based users? it's not pretty).
> If the suggestion is to change to Mac Mail, what do I do with all my Outlook emails for years and years past?
Again, this shouldn't be an issue if you're using Exchange or IMAP accounts - all that data should be stored on the server, so when you log in with Mail.app, all your messages should just appear. It's worth trying (and it should be non-destructive, so you can roll back later).
Even failing that, Mail.app can import exchange mailboxes (you can export the Outlook mailbox to a .olm file and Mail can import this).
> I don’t really want to update to a newer Outlook
Honestly, this may be the best path. Outlook 2016 will go 'end-of-life' in October of this year, so you're not going to get any updates, nor assistance from Microsoft moving forwards (technically, it's already out of mainstream support and is on 'extended life support'). It won't suddenly stop working, but it's not going to get any better, and you may just have to bite the bullet at some point because not even Microsoft will answer calls about it.
