Nobody was a UI expert at the time.

Wrong. Jef Raskin wrote the book on interface design. And he was on the original Mac team.

Love it or not, but this masochistic attention to details is what sets up Apple from the rest in the public eye.

Attention to details and micromanagement are not the same thing. You can have one without the other (Just hire devoted UI designers and hold them to a high standard).

And before we forget, the first macs failed to take the tech world by storm, and it wasn't until the iPod that Apple became silicon valley's golden boy.

Are you sure about your last point ? I was a kid so I can't be too certain, but the graphical (photo, movies, a bit of architecture, not 3d though) industry was heavy on Macs quite early on. Even music studio used Mac workstations (with additional audio hardware).

Macs had success in the education markets and among artists / filmmakers / musicians. That's a small market. Despite their advanced hardware and mature interface, early macs lost to PCs because PCs were cheaper and more open (software could run on any IBM compatible machine rather than just macs).

Apple was big in the 80's, no doubt about it, but they were small potatoes compared to the behemoth they are now.

As their market.