Agreed - IPX & Netware were way ahead of anyone else until years after MS released Active Directory. I actually started out working working with IBM using Token Ring and installing Magde NIC Cards.

These days with NFV/SDN/Etc the "Network" is more a spaghetti of virtual circuits. Try drawing a diagram of east-west pod traffic using VMWare NSX/vSANs in a hyperconverged ACI overlay environment and you will run out of ink !

Still sorta remember my startnet.bat from '94ish:

    lsl
    3c50{3,5,9}
    ipxodi
    netx
    
    rem Somthing about F: drive goes here
    rem Then login

There was no fiddling with network or node addresses. I think networks were somehow configured thru the Netware server, but can't remember.