For example, I also am old enough to have used DOS before Windows 3.1 came out, which was my first GUI. When Windows 95 came out, it was a clear improvement, but retained the same principles as Windows 3.1 began. Windows 98 iterated on it, and Windows 2k perfected it in my eyes.

So that when Windows XP came out, it abandoned the principles, going for a look that felt cartoonish and childish to me, but for others was perhaps casual and inviting. It was during this time that I discovered Compiz and other Linux eye candy, and although it abandoned the fundamental principles that Win 3.1 planted, it almost admitted this with pride, submitting a new set of principles altogether.

So when Windows Vista came out, clearly trying to compete in the arena of that new set of principles of beauty, I was ambivalent but mostly impressed. That's when I found out about Mac OS X, which Compiz et al. were clumsily imitating, and I fell in love with them, which I realized had perfected those principles before Microsoft and Linux even began to imitate them.

It almost seems like the same concept as the original purpose of MMA (mixed martial arts). There is a perfection particularly to a set of principles. You can be the best at boxing, or the best at Brazilian Jui-Jitsu, and it's almost comparing apples to oranges because they're so fundamentally different that they don't actually mix well (the current UFC being proof that the experiment has failed and created a monster).

It's the same reason movies exist like Home Front: it's that age old question, "who would win if ...", in this case London gangsters vs Southern American gangsters. Or Freddy vs Jason, or Alien vs Predator. I wish I could remember more, because those are some of the most interesting types of movies, with different real human cultures being pit against each other. Like David and Goliath, the top champions of two cultures facing off for the world to see.

I think MacPaint is one of the most beautifully designed GUIs ever created.