Why did UI's turn from practical to form over function?
E.g. Office 2003 vs Microsoft 365
It's easy to remember where everything is with a toolbar and menu bar, which allows access to any option in one click and hold move.
Seriously? Big ribbon and massive padding wasting space, as well as the ribbon being clunky to use.
Why did this happen?
Gnome does not radically change their design all the time.
The last time they did that was Gnome 3, which came out 13 years ago, and how it was going to work was showcased 16 years ago.
And you may think it was change for the sake of change, but I'd disagree. The workflow is amazing. Using anything else just feels clunky to me now.
The changes made in Gnome were based on UX usability studies, not just changing shit for the sake of changing it.
You're mistaking your dislike of Gnome not operating like a traditional windows-like UX for it being objectively bad.
I'm of the opinion that Microsoft didn't actually invent the perfect UX in the early 90s, and we therefore should not be bound to those UX ideas.