I should've clarified in my original post my preferences regarding the Mac OS. When it comes to overall systems, I believe that Mac OS X is the pinnacle of the

I should've clarified in my original post my preferences regarding the Mac OS. When it comes to overall systems, I believe that Mac OS X is the pinnacle of the Mac due to its combined usability and stability, and I also believe that the Mac as a platform peaked around the Snow Leopard era (2009-11). Mac OS X has the usability and consistency of the Mac platform with the stability of Unix. Even though Mac OS X hasn't gotten worse since Snow Leopard, unfortunately it hasn't dramatically improved since then; if it weren't for the necessity of modern browsers and security updates, I could still be productive on a computer running Snow Leopard. And the hardware situation since 2012 has been discussed on Hacker News numerous times. However, when it comes to usability alone, I have a soft spot for the classic Mac OS. Personally I believe the classic Mac OS's interface is actually more user-friendly than Mac OS X's (Mac OS is really simple with its controls and its spatial Finder, while Mac OS X is more complex due to its NeXT roots), and I also believe that the Mac platform back then was more compliant with Apple's user interface guidelines than today (although unfortunately I don't know of a way I could measure this). I find Apple's A/UX and Rhapsody projects to be quite interesting attempts to bridge the classic Mac environment with Unix. I also like the conservative choices that Apple made at the time regarding color. While Mac OS X's Aqua is quite impressive, there's something about the subdued atmosphere of Mac OS, whether it's the original black-and-white interfaces of System 6, the light touches of color in System 7, or the Platinum theme from Mac OS 8 and 9, which is still quite conservative compared to Aqua.