I could not disagree more with your third paragraph. Many of these old UIs were esoteric to the point of being nearly unusable. The art and science of UI design has rapidly evolved since those days. The purpose of the UI layer is not to serve as a medium for self expression of its creator. It’s purpose is to create an intuitive link between the user and the data or system beneath it. Modern UI design has done a much better job of making this link more intuitive and transparent.
Yeh I was kind of broad with that statement due to tiredness. I was specifically thinking of Windows 10 vs Windows 98, examples like that. It's not just Windows either, but so many websites go for this "huge whitespace, zero content" style too. Just trying to find the address or contact details for a restaurant can be a frustrating experience these days.
But yes, that era did have a lot of over-design as well, and we've studied and progressed UI/UX in a lot of truly awesome ways in recent times. I just wish we'd get past this "minimal" crap.
