Modern design is not synonymous to dis-empowering design.

FWIW I love modern design, and I hate all these too clever skeuomorphs. Modern design is honest to the digital medium. I find its beauty lies, not in the quirky ways it tries to mimic real textures and objects, but by how it provides usable controls and information by applying basic design elements like spacing, alignment, color, typography, discovery, layered info density, etc. well.

None of these requires skeuomorphs. It is like the difference between thinking a website is visually impressive and stunning because it uses a nice background image. That would not impress me. What would impress me are stuff like: does it have an effective information architecture, as reflected in it main menu and general link structure? Does it use a tasteful and usable color scheme? Does it have an interesting and still usable visual grouping? Etc.

I fully agree with this take. I don't think of a monitor / desktop as a tool that I interact with like I would a hammer; there is nothing intuitive about "open this high-definition representation of a day planner by clicking a button with your thumb on this little round plastic box somewhere else." I simply do not understand the appeal of skeumorphism, frankly I think these things look tacky but that is just my preference.

My interactions are with content, generally as strings of text but often as picture/video/audio. I prefer that my 'desktop' apply the principles you've mentioned, to the problem of tastefully and comfortably arranging, displaying, and manipulating that content, and little else. Some types of controls that lean skeuomorphic, like sliders or switches, may be useful and even intuitive in that endeavor; others, like an analog knob or dial, aren't. If I want to watch a video, display it in a minimal, tasteful frame; I do not need a representation of an old 1970s wooden TV or something.

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