In a dish that requires finely chopped onions like steak tartare for example…it does make a diference if the onions are coarse and not finely chopped from the tasters point of view. In a cooked dish too for example curries or biryanis, finely chooped onions lend a better taste. Why is that?
It definitely can- if the onion is supposed to be a background note, biting into a chunk of onion (especially raw) can be jarring.
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Nailed it in one.
Please, it is not “finely chopped”.
There is coarsely chopped, chopped, diced, minced, etc.
‘Finely-chopped’ is between diced and minced.
In my experience, mostly making things like curries, the onion is supposed to turn into almost a mush that incorporates into the sauce. As said, there shouldn’t be recognizable onion pieces.
No, finely diced is between diced and minced.
Wouldn’t “finely chopped” be between chopped and diced? Or, perhaps it’s “coarsely diced”. 
It could be argued that ‘diced’ equals ‘finely chopped’.
In a steak tartare you really don’t want ‘chunks’ of onion. The onion should be about the same texture as the minced steak.
Don’t forget grated onion, which I find very useful when I want no onion texture at all.
absolutely, the garlic, onion and ginger I use in my madras-style curry are blended to a mush using a stick-type hand blender. This is a primary reason for curries having that almost “granular” texture to the sauce.
Well, one thing I remember from the great book “The cookbook decoder”, which delves a lot into the chemistry of cooking, is that every time you chop an onion, it gives certain flavor molecules more of a chance to develop; they combine from components held apart in seperate cells, or something like that. The same thing happens with garlic, and with the tear-inducing chemicals many people notice when chopping onions.