> it genuinely does make the...users happy

But you have no idea if it does that, you just have the word of the PO who's not actually building anything, they're at best just copying what others are doing (ie being derivative) or at worst just doing guesswork.

How about offering an alternative: a UI/UX that takes the web as it is, a primarily document-based format with navigation and data entry? A lot of cool stuff can be built on top of that.