Call me cynical, but Win2k was probably developed by a small and tight-knit group of engineers, PMs and designers. It felt focused and ran most software well.

Call me cynical, but Win2k was probably developed by a small and tight-knit group of engineers, PMs and designers. It felt focused and ran most software well. I think if I remember correctly, Win2k was meant to replace the Windows 98/DOS kernel but they couldn't get it to work in time. That's when WinXP came out instead. WinXP felt like the result of a much bigger org. Am I correct to speculate that in Microsoft, the NT teams and the DOS teams merged to create WinXP? If so, that would explain XP and that probably created all kind of tonal and structural shifts, a result that was a massive eyesore of an OS. Plus their attempt to come up with a cute theme-able UI like OS X's Aqua was seriously half baked.