I will not engage further. If anyone is interested in user interface design its history and theory, there are may websites and textbooks that cover it. The relevant keywords to search on are “usability” and “discoverability”.
This is not an answer but rather an add-on to the question. I followed the instructions to create a landscape page as the second page and it worked. However, when I copied another LO Writer landscape page and pasted it into the second page, the page orientation returned to portrait. I then could not change the page style back to landscape without closing the document and opening it again. Next, I used Paste Special LibreOffice 6.3 Text Document. The page returned to portrait orientation. Closed and opened the document again. Then tried Paste Special Rich text formatting (RTF) and that kept the page orientation as landscape.
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This is not an answer but rather an add-on to the question.
You are right. Therefore your post should be added to the question or to a specifically related answer as a comment.
The post also is not a question, but is (basically) about a supposed bug. If you actually can describe a reproducible misbehavior of LibO, you should report it to https://bugs.documentfoundation.org . I’m afraid you won’t find much attention for it via this Q&A site, and surely there will not be a fix. You may hope for a workaround at best.
You can’t copy’n’paste pages in Writer. You copy text (formatted or not). Unless, you better describe, step by step, what you did, we can’t comment or have an opinion about the misbehaviour.
I copied the text on the page using Shift Ctrl End and then Ctrl C
Did the selection range contain “special” formatting “tags”? (you can see them when View>Formatting Marks is enabled).
Can you attach a sample file with the problem to your “answer”? You can’t attach to a comment, so edit your “answer”. If you deem a full discussion/analysis is needed, ask your own question (quoting this one in a link) and delete your “answer”.
What I have been doing it switching back and forth between LibreOffice (LO), where this process is obnoxious and Text Maker Free Office ™, where it is easy, when I want to change page orientation of particular pages.
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download/applications
Text Maker is better at page orientation, is less buggy, and more responsive to reported bugs by users. TM has not figure out tables of contents yet.
LibreOffice has more functionality, is far more buggy and awkward, non responsive to reported bugs by users (this one is an example), and does nice tables of contents.
I will save in LO and go into TM to set my desired page orientation, then back into LO to update my Tables of Contents.
Neither one does envelopes worth a dang. I use “Envelope Printer” for them.
http://www.datawaregames.com/html/Envelope-Printer.htm
Envelope Printer is insanely easy to use.
I had a look at Text Maker Free Office on-line manual.
The main difference with LO Writer is in styles: TM Free Office only offers paragraph and character styles. There are no frame, list and page styles. A seemingly equivalent feature to page styles is master pages, but this does not cover all functionalities of page styles. So, I assume it translates to direct-formatting when document is exported to .odt.
Also, master pages seem to be less flexible than page styles. A switch requires a manual “chapter break” (whereas there are far more ways to switch in LO Writer).
What I fear most with your workflow (back and forth between TMFO and LO W) is the progressive clutter of the document by direct formatting which will prevent you from easily controlling the document with styles.
TMFO seems to be less “advanced” (style-wise) than Writer and less prone to formatting/layout automation.
With now a long experience with LO Writer styles, I don’t find the page control process to be obnoxious in both simple and complex documents. You seem to be in the stage where you know what to request from documents apps to reach your formatting goal but not having yet mastered the next step where you drop direct formatting for styles assignment to elements of text. This next level brings you many more effects and more comfort in writing.
Read the Writer Guide for an introduction to styles.