While yes they did introduce GUI changes they also introduced a lot more fundamental changes. Typically the second release is seen as better because it's usuall

While yes they did introduce GUI changes they also introduced a lot more fundamental changes. Typically the second release is seen as better because it's usually a refined version or at least the changes had more time to perculate. For example Vista introduced many things that changed the fundamental nature of Windows, UAC (split tokens, integrity levels, etc), new audio stack, overhaul of IPv6, new display driver model. A lot of these new driver changes and the extra hardware requirements caused a lot of issues whereas when 7 came out the requirements were no longer as burdomsome and manufacturers had more time to release better drivers. Windows 8 introduced UWP silos, new startup process, Hyper-V as a client. 8.1 and 10 were definitely more iterations on the GUI and other features to make it a bit more palatable.