A lot of the decisions made in the 80s were more based around hardware limitations. For example BASIC was chosen not because it was the best programming languag

A lot of the decisions made in the 80s were more based around hardware limitations. For example BASIC was chosen not because it was the best programming language for home computers but because it was able to fit on tiny ROMs on systems with between 16 and 64 kilobytes (!!!) of RAM. The reason we have DOS is because CP/M could run on those systems too. A Unix-like OS wouldn’t even come remotely close to running on early 80s micro computers. And much has been said about the problems of UNIXs design but the reason it was designed they way it was is entirely due to limitations in the hardware of its era too. Unfortunately once a standard has been set, it’s very hard to change. It’s why there is still DOS remnants in modern NT-based Windows, why Linux and macOS still have TTYs, and why C-based languages even though decades of CS have given us far better principles to build from.