NT was started around 88 and released in mid 93. UTF-8 wasn't ready until early 93. It's too bad they couldn't go back in time to retrofit everything.
Programming is a series of tradeoffs. Unless you are in the middle of doing it, you don't understand the pressure the programmers were facing and the tradeoffs needed to be made. The Windows and Unix guys didn't face the same problem since they were different problems with different tools available in different time periods. Hindsight is 20/20 and is easy to be dickish to laugh at their mistakes afterward.
Programming is a series of tradeoffs. Unless you are in the middle of doing it, you don't understand the pressure the programmers were facing and the tradeoffs needed to be made. The Windows and Unix guys didn't face the same problem since they were different problems with different tools available in different time periods. Hindsight is 20/20 and is easy to be dickish to laugh at their mistakes afterward.