IMO the best thing about paracord is that it is a good general use line.

In use it is fairly unremarkable by modern standards for synthetic lines. Biggest things to remember is that 550 pounds is the minimum breaking strength. Safe working load is a fraction of that. A common rule of thumb for calculating safe working load from minimum break strength is to divide by five. So figure safe working load on mil-spec 550 cord is 110 pounds.

It also has to be noted that paracord loses about 15% strength when wet. So figure 93.5 pounds safe working load when wet.

It also has to be noted that this only hold true for new line tested in a laboratory mounted with care to make sure the kernmantle sleeve works with the inner strands. Less careful use makes it less effective. Also older, worn, UV damaged paracord, like stuff that has been macramed into a bracelet and worn for a year or two, will have proportionally less strength remaining. Safe working load may be 50 pounds or less.

IMO the worse thing is that it has become a material, actually a quite unremarkable material, that has become a cult object. This has its roots in WW2 when it was primarily used for parachute suspension lines and airborne troops had easiest access to the stuff. It developed a cache of being new and special. In 1945 it kind of was high-tech and special.

This was reinforced during Korea and after when survival was emphasized for fliers and the working assumption was that they would come down in their chute and have a goodly amount of paracord to work with. Associated with airborne training and survival it was a natural for elite units. So paracord became the standard for reliable light line in the late 40s and early 50s, when much or the military, and most civilians, were still using natural fiber ropes for utility use.

Sixty years later paracord, even the genuine mil-spec Type III stuff, real 550 cord, is not all that remarkable. It is still reliable light line. It still caries a lot of cache, pull out a length of paracord and you summon up pictures of paratroopers sweating out rides in C-47s over Normandy and SF cadre patrolling triple-canopy jungle in Vietnam, but time has moved on. Nylon is no longer seen as a miracle material and kernmantle construction is old hat for climbers and boatmen.

Personally I've found that common quarter-inch triple-strand nylon, safe working load 182 pounds (ABYC), can do most of what paracord does and does some things better. You can pull the core strands out of 550 but triple-strand can be entirely unlaid, all the way down to thread.

The nautical phrase 'spinning yarns' came from the practice of sailors, lacking anything better to do, sitting in a circle and telling tales as they took worn or unused lengths of hawser and unwinding them to produce 'small stuff', anything less than 1" circumference (about 5/16" diameter), and yarns, the smallest twisted strands. Sailing ships seldom actually bought anything less than 2" circumference line, about 5/8 diameter, because manufacturing their own from heavier lines was cheaper.

Of course nylon isn't the only material now. Polyester, Dacron, is about as strong and costly as nylon but it doesn't pay a penalty for being wet, doesn't degrade as fast in sunlight (UV), and it doesn't stretch so much.

More modern materials, Spectra, Dyneema, Kevlar are much stronger than either of those but they are also much pricier and all have their own special issues. Many, particularly Dyneema, are so slippery that tying a reliable knot in them is a challenge. Kevlar wears out quickly if bent too tightly. Some compounds, if they aren't coated or treated, can suffer catastrophic UV damage in a few days in the tropical sun.