Early GUIs look garish because the designers could not apply color theory even if they wanted to, given the hardware of the time. The only reasonable alternati

Early GUIs look garish because the designers could not apply color theory even if they wanted to, given the hardware of the time. The only reasonable alternative would have been to go monochromatic like early Mac, X-Windows (all those stippled patterns!) I guess Microsoft felt that people wanted color more than they wanted aesthetics, and the market backed them up in spades.