The reason why is kinda silly: so a couple of years ago the Windows org made yet another locked-down, "mobile-first" SKU of desktop Windows designed for larger

The reason why is kinda silly: so a couple of years ago the Windows org made yet another locked-down, "mobile-first" SKU of desktop Windows designed for larger phablets and ARM devices (which never materialized - though imagine if the Microsoft Surface Duo[1] was expanded to a much wider range of Microsoft and partner-branded devices) - and this included a somewhat simplified shell user-experience - and it ended up as "Windows 10X" and was promoed at the start of this year (look familiar? https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10x https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10x ). Then something happened in the late-spring 2021 when the shell team all suddenly disappeared - around the same time as Bill Gates' divorce announcement (coincidence? I think not!) and the Windows org's leadership decided to make the bold move of copying-and-pasting Windows 10X#'s cut-down shell, intended for mobile devices, into the full-fat enterprise and desktop SKUs of Windows 11 and call it a day. My sources and former work-colleague friends at MS tell me that the current shell team (they should call it a fossil team at this point considering it seems there's nothing left of it) is very, very aware of the huge backlash over the removal of essential features like repositioning the taskbar and having individual taskbar buttons, but don't expect a quick-fix - I get the feeling some hotshot PMs will try to use this occasion to pitch their own unique new (and unproven...) concepts on how the shell should work, instead of doing the big fat `git reset HEAD` back to a late-2019 commit that they should be doing... le sigh... [1] (which runs Android... which is further evidence something went really wrong with the wave-function collapse around 2016)