The UI for Hololens 1 was terrible. Having to hold your gaze perfectly at tiny buttons and trying to get the Air Tap to work successfully was super annoying. You'd think they'd be able to project your fingers into 3d space from your approximate eye location.
To be fair, it was state of the art... five years ago. HoloLens 1 was an amazing feat of engineering. Yes, it was a terrible user experience, but we wouldn't have the latest hardware without it.
As for projecting the fingers, it is possible. It's just not a great experience. Nose-pointer is a (application level) compromise. I've built apps in HL1 where direct hand gestures are essential. And it's definitely a master interface. It's not something you can easily train new users on.
No question it was cutting edge, the spatial mapping feature worked 99.999 percent of the time, something which other platforms haven't come close to achieving.
Glad they've revisited those flaws!