It's interesting, I always see a lot of love for the more "blobby" (for lack of a better word) UIs from that era, whereas I've always preferred flat UI design. I just think it looks cleaner personally. If the actual functionality of windows wasn't so garbage, I'd really like its more flat UI design in recent times.

Its the same with websites, where I routinely see people unhappy with flat website design, but I deliberately made my website a lot more flat because I think it just looks better. Not to detract from your opinion at all, you can like what you like, but I've just never understood the appeal of vista/xp era UI design over flat design

Flat != Accessible && Ergonomic. Too much eye-squinting needed and everyone makes mistakes with a new flat UI.