Yeah, OS X and the iPhone were new products, not just upgrades of what came before (as you say, OS X had significant limitations compared to OS 9). You didn't

Yeah, OS X and the iPhone were new products, not just upgrades of what came before (as you say, OS X had significant limitations compared to OS 9). You didn't have to upgrade right away, but if you did, you got an entirely new experience. Compare this to today's Apple, where upgrades add "hundreds of features" but feel mostly the same (except everything runs a bit more slowly). There's no coherent vision of what the future of the software should be like.