This reminds me: There was pretty interesting community of Linux users customizing X11 desktops in the late 90s and the very early 2000s... When the first screenshots and demos of OS X and Aqua came out, almost immediately, people tried to imitate that.
I ran windowmaker on my linux systems around 2000 to get that same look, but I had serious NeXT envy.
I'm not sure they had it literally "better" than everybody else, but they certainly had something unique, well executed, etc.
You can still recognize NeXT patterns in modern Mac GUIs. They're usually not surface level anymore.
Still a disaster compared to System 7, 8, or 9.
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/beos-1....
It started as apple's knockoff but quickly spun out of control with amount of stuff you could setup with compiz/beryl.
Then people figure out most of it while very cool is not all that practical.
As amazing as OSX seemed when it was launched, I partially blame OSX and the whole "make everything round and groovy and graphical goodness" trend that started us down the patch of making GUI's 'form over function'.
This is bleeding over from OS into power-user-oriented software like CAD and engineering tools and most everyone hates it. The whole "lets take away buttons and make the ribbon icons bigger and more graphically pleasing" to make products look more modern is a cancer for power users and productive people who just want access to everything as best and fast as possible. It's a delicate balance that I do indeed believe peaked well over a decade ago.