Maybe not exactly elegant, but certainly much more neat and tidy, clean and consistent than it is now. From W95/NT4 up to at least W2K it was quite OK.

And using the old-style “theme” or whatever it was called, you could use that tidy and consistent UI throughout XP in stead of the garish “Fisher-Price” look, via Vista in stead of the annoying and distracting transparency, and well into Windows 7 in stead of whatever the “native look” of that version may have been like (I have no idea, switched to the old look first thing I did).

It only finally went to shit with Windows 8, and unfortunately restoring the Start Menu wasn't enough to make 10 good again.

I have to disagree slightly. The default for Windows 98 had a consistent aesthetic, consistent short-cuts across applications, and a sensible menu system (even if things were janky on the backend).