I can. An old world processor may have a much more keyboard-optimized UX.
Also, there were a lot of thoughtful people working decades ago when old computer technology was new. Thoughtfully designed software from 1989 could probably beat the latest 2025 jank in many ways.
Just a few weeks ago, people on HN were waxing poetic about the Lotus 1-2-3 user interface, as someone ported it to Linux.
This is a very strange sentiment in general, since word processors are pretty much the only retro software that's worth keeping and using today - professional writers often hang onto them. It's especially strange to hear in a place where people routinely use fifty year old text editors.
Next, I need an Amiga emulator that runs on a MacBook Pro ...
[1] - https://archive.org/details/wordworth-7
And slightly amazing they did a release as recently as 2008.
https://github.com/AnimatorPro/
https://github.com/AnimatorPro/Animator-Pro/tree/f5ed37135ad...
Fun restrictions to work with/around and it has some fun features too. Running in DOS also makes it run everywhere, including on my phone.
Would be happy to use more old DOS software, but I just have not found more that seemed as useful (maybe VGAPaint 386 for a different paint app?). No constant (forced) upgrades to keep up with. I can compromise a lot with features if it means that I can spend years/decades on mastering a tool instead of just barely keeping up with how the latest version works. Learning is much more fun than re-learning. (Guess that is why I always liked Emacs so much.)
I wonder what other categories of software could you pull this off? For example, I couldn't imagine anyone waxing nostalgic for the UX of an old word processor app.