This is kind of how I feel about Windows 95. I remember when there was only DOS, and then Windows 3 came out, and then Windows 95 which seemed like the very perfection of UI. Since then it seems to have gone downhill. Not very many true innovations, which is partly why I started experimenting with desktop Linux and finally switched to Mac OS X 10.4, because it felt like the final evolution of the desktop. Nowadays, nothing seems quite ideal, but Win95/98 will always seem like the epitome of desktop UI, the perfect union of form and function. Probably just nostalgia and rose colored glasses though in all honesty.
I think it’s not just nostalgia. Windows 95 was a huge step for MS and introduced most of the UI elements that we are still using now. Since then I have trouble seeing any fundamental improvements in newer Windows versions. I’d be happy to go back to the UI of 95 or XP compared to the latest Windows 10 stuff. I just don’t it really got any better. Just slower.
Windows 95 was a major step into OSes too. I remember how well done the UI was. It became silly in 98 and then on XP with crazy design styles that. I don't know if the original design team left Middle Earth, but in two years they've experimented too much and Windows became normless while Apple maintained guidelines with better hand.
I do like that some Windows programs are now converting menus into searchable hierarchies, e.g. Visual Studio and VS Code. But those are just programs, and they're only power-user programs. Searchable grouped functions are a genuine innovation on top of hierarchical menus. The "Start Menu" improved on that front and it is generally good.
I think the problem now is that some programs make improvements but the OS is stagnating. With Windows 95 the OS provided all the widgets like toolbars, menus and help system so most applications were pretty consistent. The first break was when Office introduced the ribbon but everybody else was forced to code their own ribbon because it wasn't integrated in the OS. Now with UWP and Win32 there is no consistency anymore. Searchable menus could easily have been integrated as standard for all apps if anybody had cared.
Same thing for rearrangeable tabs with close buttons. I think Firefox introduced that concept (maybe it was Chrome), but it never got an official API, either on Mac OS X or Windows, which is strange because it's been such a fundamental part of certain programs for 15-20 years now. Lately macOS kind of has this, by allowing automatic grouping of documents for you, but it just feels hacked on compared to giving us this as an actual GUI component.
