@meninodal - I agree with your feature requests, but 2 of them are already available through extensions.
For vertical tabs there is Tabsets, which runs in the side panel like you are asking for.
There's also the Dark Mode extension, which isn't perfect, but it's serviceable.
Naturally it would be better if Opera could implement these natively, but if you're looking for solutions, they exist.
As for AI-driven tab organization, frankly I hate that. I don't want anything else deciding where my things are. I put them where I want them and I expect them to stay there. As an optional feature, sure, offer it for people who would like that. But make sure other users have a way to turn it off.