so what is the purpose of the 'global macro group'? how should it be used?
Peter
Use is optional, of course, but any macros you store in that folder will be available in any application. As much as anything, though, it's probably meant as a demonstration of a built-in Keyboard Maestro capability. Personally, I don't use this group just because it has a unique inability to be renamed and that conflicts with my mental organizational models even though I have other macro groups that work globally just like this one does.
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thank you! so sounds like most people never use it?
I don't know if people do or don't use it. Keyboard Maestro is capable of doing a tremendous amount and I suspect the more people use it the more they organize macros their own way, whether or not they utilize that folder.
Since this Macro Group is provided by default, I suspect many users do use it for their global macros. No reason to reinvent the wheel, unless you have some improvements. 
I did use it myself for several years.
But it really doesn't matter whether other users use it. Do whatever works for you.
It is basically the default place to put your macros, and make them available always.
When first starting out, this is a good place to put macros - they work and they always trigger like you expect.
After you discover that you want per-application macros, you typically start creating macro groups for each application, and limit that new macro group to that application and place application-specific macros in that group.
Later, if you have lots of macros, you may want to create macro groups for specific purposes, for example you might have a group for text expansion macros, or for application launching, or for opening web pages, or whatever. Or you may make macro groups to create custom palettes.
You may also find that some of those global macros end up conflicting with weird applications (Remote Desktops for example or games or whatever), so maybe you make a Mostly Global Macros, and move some of those macros in there, and exclude the problematic applications.
Personally, I have 60 enabled macro groups, and I still use the Global Macro Group, which has about a hundred macros, about 20 of which I still use, and the rest are just left over from something or other.
Thanks Peter, good explanation.
Peter Poole
please disregard any Siri errors
I don't use the global macro group that way myself. I create macro groups (palettes) for every app or like in this article (gif) for several screenshot apps.
The advantage of @ppoolemetrocast.net is that for such a macro group (palette) I only need a single shortcut to access it.