I think nostalgia plays a part for sure, but there's also substance about the old UIs. Looking at Win98 icons reminds me of my days in high school when I would

I think nostalgia plays a part for sure, but there's also substance about the old UIs. Looking at Win98 icons reminds me of my days in high school when I would just tinker around Windows for fun, changing icons of shortcuts, make good ol' personal homepages in HTML and Javascript (mostly alert boxes), and play Starcraft 1 and Diablo 2. The icons and the Win98 UI give me pleasant feelings, mostly coming from those experiences. On the substance side -- this isn't exactly about Windows, but in the last couple of years I've tried a variety of Linux distros and DEs. Specifically, I've tried CentOS 7 KDE, Antergos Gnome 3, and Manjaro 18 KDE, all on laptops. There's no doubt that both Antergos and Manjaro bring with them very modern DEs (regardless of Gnome or KDE). But for some reasons, I felt the most productive on the CentOS 7 KDE, even though it looks the most primitive. Before I had the Manjaro laptop, I thought it was a KDE vs Gnome difference (KDE being more similar to Windows, vs Gnome being more similar to macOS, and I generally prefer Windows), but I think it actually does come down to the UI design. CentOS 7's KDE looks very dated, but everything is very functional and took little customization to feel productive in. The difference is similar to Win98/2000 vs Win7/8/10.