11’s design language (Fluent) in itself isn’t bad. Personally I find it preferable over the antialiased Windows 1.x look that reigned from 8 through 10. It also implements dark mode more completely than 10 does which is nice.

What makes 11 bad is all the other stuff, like ads in your start menu, taskbar losing functionality, endless background processes being added, etc.

That said there really should be a DE that has built in settings that produce legally distinct but spiritually aligned XP and 7 clone environments.