two of my personal gripes: the doggie in XP's search function, and the idea that Longhorn might kill the "Classic" interface that's been around since Windows 95.

As for Classic View, more than 700 of you demanded its survival--as opposed to 3 who liked the new Windows XP look. Many complained about XP's "Fisher-Price interface" and noted that the first thing they do on any XP machine is switch back to Classic View. I wholeheartedly agree.

I remember liking and disliking the aesthetic depending on it's execution. I really liked the way it was used in Windows Vista, but thought it looked out of place on stuff like phones or the X-box 360 UI. I think the difference is whether it was using a flatter execution of the aesthetic or not, as Vista had a sort of flat glass plane type of style vs. a rounder, more 3d esk type of execution that you see on phone menus and such that looked like those thick transparent stickers.

...it displaced what was before.

Microsoft always referred to this style as just "aero." I don't know where the "frutiger" part is supposed to come from. I also don't associate this specific look with anything other than Microsoft products made between 2006-2012 and third party products (adware) that were specifically trying to copy Microsoft. I wouldn't call it the defining style of mid-2000s tech, just one particular flavor of a larger and less specific design trend that would also include what Apple was doing at the same time.

I was in highschool/college when this aesthetic came out, and at the time I thought it looked tacky and overly coporate, but now I have grown an appreciation for it because what we have now is so much worse