they've had a launch-pad-ey thing forever, I remember when our school lab had Mac IIs and Performas, and there was some simplified UI on top of finder which basically was all your apps in giant rectangular icons. I forget what it was called though.

It was called At Ease (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease).

I’m surprised to find out it was itself an Apple product; I had always assumed it was a third-party shell, akin to Norton Desktop for Windows 3.1.

I remember seeing my work colleague drag the applications folder to the dock for quick access, this was before the modern launchpad, and before I even started using macs.