I’m curious if whonix actually provides any value rather than just running tor locally?
It’s definitely more resistant to any exploits because Whonix Workstation doesn’t know your real IP address.
Like has there ever been a case when because tor was run locally on someones computer over using whonix for tor that they were compromised?
If someone got saved from being identified then you probably will not hear about it anywhere but there were cases where Whonix would save someone from being identified if they only used it. As an example see Buster Hernandez’s case (more details here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7gd9b/facebook-helped-fbi-hack-child-predator-buster-hernandez). He was running Tor locally (because he was using Tails) and he got caught.
You don’t even have to be a programmer to remember how slow Internet Explorer is.