> things were hardly a panacea with a lot of buttons and checkboxes as the infamous "Bulk Rename Utility" showed how things could get out of control

Layout and usability are independent of widget design. I'll take the widgets shown in the "Bulk Rename Facility" over the any of the flat UI "material" nonsense where it's not clear what is clickable and you cannot by process of elimination explore the UI.

That said, usability definitely has been improved over the years. So no, not everything was better then, but the widgets were.