I’m convinced that 80% of the hatred of modern Windows could easily have been avoided if they just made both settings areas have, you know, all settings.

I'm not convinced that's a thing they can do.

Too many settings are in 3p apps

Yeah but Windows itself has two control panels for its own settings, no 3P installed at all.

Left over from the half-hearted touch Renaissance.

In older Windows, the control panel was extendable by 3rd party applications and drivers. So it sticks around mostly for that and mostly because re-writing a UI for changing really esoteric IT-admin level settings is a waste of time.

I think this has changed in 11.

I hate how the File menu in all the office apps turned into some weird thing with no text on it. And when I do remember that's where it went and click it, not a menu but a whole fricking nother version of control panel slides out covering what I was doing...