I've started writing some Win32 code for fun and like you I found it a whole different experience from GTK and such. It really is an API rather than a toolkit.

I've started writing some Win32 code for fun and like you I found it a whole different experience from GTK and such. It really is an API rather than a toolkit. Take scrolling. Scroll bars are provided when requested, but all the interactions have to be implement by the application. There's no 'scroll view' with standard behaviours. This means Microsoft can't easily add new scrolling behaviours as we see with the messy situation around high precision trackpads and touch. Compare this to Cocoa with its auto layout, data binding and even document lifecycle management. On the other hand, with Win32 I rarely find myself fighting the toolkit. I'm in control. Backwards comatibility is also amazing. With my little project I'm targeting Windows 3.1 through Windows 10 with a single binary! I expected most of my effort to go towards supporting old OSes, but in reality I spend more time on modern features like proper per-monitor DPI suport, the gazillion different scrolling behaviours and (conditionally loaded) GDI+ and Direct2D implementations. Another delightful aspect, although again it comes the beforementioned price, is the speed. My little utility starts instantly and won't skip a beat when you frantically shake the resize grip. Compare that to even the simplest UWP XAML app.