If you take an Apple computer from the early OSX releases (an iMac G4 from 2002, for example), you will be able to use it exactly as you use macos today. This indicates a success for UX.

You cannot say the same about GNOME3 or Windows 11 versus XP - Windows 11 has some baffling Settings app and also a Control Panel, being a mashup of different ideas and UI elements (and toolkits! see MMC snap-ins versus the UI of Settings).

The only difference is recent trends to dumb-down the UI to be more iPad-like, and this trend of Etch-A-Sketchification of the macos UI is not something to be welcomed.