Pet peeve with recipes

Recipes that are vague. I am trying out a new cookie recipe and it says to use a small cookie scoop. What size small? These are professional chef recipes and to be so vague is just plain bad. I see this all of the time. For example:

a bunch of thyme
a handful of something
an onion (out here they usually are the size of a softball)
a whole carrot (they vary so much in size)

I could go on but I can't think of anything else at the moment.

I rarely follow a true recipe, except in baking. But a small cookie scoop to me is one that is smaller than a golf ball. I think it's up to using your intuition and past experience to figure it out.