What gets me is the death of decorations, and then trying to guess what interaction you're going to get if you click on a certain flat color bit of a background

What gets me is the death of decorations, and then trying to guess what interaction you're going to get if you click on a certain flat color bit of a background window. I keep thinking back to the winxp to 7 era (along with the various windowblinds/uxstyle third party skins), plus various furniture, fittings or tools/utensils/appliances from decades/centuries past (so antiques essentially). The physical items would have textures from the materials used and the processes to make them, maybe they'd be gnurled to add a grip, but also elaborations that aren't purely functional or just to make it look nicer. When you're familiar with those visuals they do seem to help you know what part of it you're looking at, and how it's going to act if you grab/click any given point. Scrollbars are now an annoyance (when they're not hidden) as they're often low contrast and made to fade into the background, just another dull rectangle in a sea of others, rather than a distinct bit of UI chrome. There used to be a unique inline and small grooves at the centre point as I remember. I'm not about to declare having the pendulum swing to the other extreme would be better, but it'd be interesting to see it explored again.