I think Windows 2000 was a big improvement over 95/98. XP was decent. 7/8 was ok and seems to be going in random directions now.

I think the parent was mainly talking about the UI. Almost all of the classic Windows UI was there in '95, and minor improvements were released with each new version up until ~Vista-7 when they started destroying it.

Vista and 8 were unmitigated disasters. ME was apparently "misunderstood"?

So it's more of a cycle than a trend.

You gotta fuck shit up every now and again to take the easy victories when you unfuck what you previously fucked.

Nah, at least for me the best improvements have been: 98>95>XP,all the rest have been minimal or total disasters.

Windows 7 was the pinnacle of Windows’ UI

The app upgrades were solid, but I missed the classic Windows 2000 look which you couldn't quite get with 7 without modifying system files.

Window snap is absolutely an improvement.