It's interesting to compare even MacOS 1.0 with contemporary imitators. Windows 1.0 looks horrific, and GEOS has an uncanny resemblance, but everything is clunkier and uglier in subtle ways. Susan Kare is a genius.
If I could use Linux with a pixel-perfect System 7-like window manager I'd be delighted. It would probably be necessary to rewrite a suite of everyday applications to really take advantage of the look-and-feel and have internal consistency, but that could be its own fun project.
http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~y-miyata/mlvwm.html
Modern fork:
https://github.com/samdmarshall/mlvwm
And finder clone, with GTK1.
https://web.archive.org/web/20020408211103/http://www.udk-be...
Modern GTK2 fork:
On the software crashes, please, use the forked ones from github, they are fixed and patched to work on modern systems.
https://github.com/timnetworks/Platinum9
I find this theme quite pleasing to use whenever I'm using a Linux desktop. However, it's not yet pixel-perfect, and this also doesn't address the fact that GTK and GNOME applications are written under a completely different set of UI guidelines than classic Mac apps were, and so it's still largely a Mac OS 8-like veneer over the Linux desktop.
Even so, this theme looks like an excellent foundation for a suite of GTK applications that employ the mid-1990s Apple Human Interface Guidelines. What would be tantalizing would be forks of AbiWord and GIMP that look and feel like Microsoft Word 5.1 and classic versions of Photoshop, respectively.
There were three iterations (that I recall) of the interface on color Macs - the first one had window controls that were black and white, the second had a subtle 3d effect, and the third (which I think you mean by "Platinum") had more depth and was mostly gray.
I personally preferred the second. Attempts at imitating grayish metal on screen don't appeal to me, and I thought OS X got even worse when they switched to the brushed metal look.
But I really liked the design theme for the physical cases that was also called "Platinum" even though I think it's generally considered an uninspired period for Apple. And I have nothing against the aluminium or titanium Mac cases either.
The one change I would make to a "neo-Mac" window manager would be to have handles on all sides of a window for resizing. Although I like the Mac approach of having scrollbars and a lower right resize control that are substantial and obvious, I also like the ability to resize from all sides like most other interfaces have. I know there were Mac programs for the classic OS that did implement something like that, but it was never universal.
I know people have made attempts as Mac-like interfaces, but it would be a huge task to make one with as much attention to detail and consistency as the original. And then you might be infringing anyway.
*Like, I'm not colorblind, but changing the traditional hieroglyphic window controls to bubbles distinguishable only by color signified an attitude/culture change that irritated me.