I kinda agree with others, it's probably a lot due to fond memories. I didn't like it, I still don't really, but I like what it brings back. It's also the cutesy and end of a computing era where things were plastic, slightly round, large, playful. Just before MacOS X / iPhone wiped that era off.

On the ergonomics and visual side I prefer simpler and leaner NT5 (which actually was in XP, just need to disable theming).