I think this sort of thing is more subjective and dependent on what the user is used to than most are willing to admit. I find the vaunted Aero Snap feature incredibly annoying for example because it’s so “noisy” with its proposed-snap animations and how easily it’s accidentally triggered (especially when multiple displays are involved) — the way the third party app Moom does it with a popover that appears on green traffic light hover or key shortcut is vastly preferable to me.

It’s true that Mac desktop evolution has somewhat stagnated and could use some movement, but that movement shouldn’t necessarily be toward the Win9X desktop paradigm.