When I started using Linux, it was about thinking out of the box and about change. It had many exciting window managers that put everything in Windows to shame when it came to customizing and style.
Nowadays I have the feeling, Linux has become the resort of the grumpy and disenfranchized, clutching to whatever was cool when they were young. The levelheaded and progressive jumped ship to OSX and are now probably contemplating switching to Windows 10 after Apple dropped the ball for them. This leaves all Linux progress like Gnome and Systemd maintained by inept pompous hipsters.
/rant
You are making a fallacy in saying that old equals bad/ugly. XFCE is keeping it oldschool and can still look amazing (xubuntu looks great IMO).
There's much to talk about when talking about GUI things. Much indeed. Many things are even quantifiable, instead of being pure personal preference. Just remember that Microsoft spent a lot of effort into studies in what culminated to be windows95, while many other projects did not (the study that ended up being gnome3 is a joke in comparison).
i want to bring this to lxde someday
I think UIs should either change very gradually and only in ways that literally are better, but also have a way of ensuring the options aren't removed entirely, or at the very least if the option is obscure ala options removed in Gnome 2, then they should be kept and allow someone to create a tweaking tool to change them.
If a huge change is to be made, like the Gnome Shell, then it should be done in a development release and ALL of the compatible UI should be kept on the desktop, with an easy UI option to switch between the modes. It turns out that Gnome Shell could do this - but only after a time.
UX and UIs are one of those things you really should be incredibly careful about foisting on anyone. If you do it, you need to do it somewhat gently.
Some developers even uses accessibility interface to add custom overlays & controls (Steam for instance).
For Windows there is Taekwindow, at least:
Because the people who were willing to run a Linux desktop in 2003 are not in any way a representative sample of the population. That's like saying "if assembly was good enough for the first batch of programmers, why would we need higher level languages?"
FWIW, I noticed recently that I've been using xmonad for 5 years (+/- 2 weeks) and still 100% happy. It lets me work efficiently and nothing has changed.