I still miss the classic OS, 20 years later.
Some reasons:
1. For years, Mac users prided themselves on not having to run an operating system that was a shell upon a command line operating system. Now we're stuck with Terminal to get serious stuff done, which is no different in a sense than MS-DOS being the underpinnings of Windows--something Mac users liked to complain about when using Windows. Sure, there was a debugger on the classic OS, but some things need Terminal that should be accomplishable without it.
2. I like computers that don't require passwords for everything. Anyone can argue that they are more necessary today, but if a computer is being used offline by one person, why the passwords? Why a password for something as trivial as changing something in the control panel? It's a major pain and something I've always despised about the current Mac OS. We used ResEdit without that inconvenience to do much more to our systems years ago.
3. The interface has too much dark gray and it's not customizable. The grays on the classic OS, from System 7 onward, were light and pleasant. I've long equated the OS X and up grays with dark clouds. In fact, the lack of customization in general is bad. Where is the ability to change things like menu bar fonts from the ugly sans serif typeface to something like Chicago?
4. Icons that bounce up and down when a program wants attention. It's obtrusive and annoying. Under the classic OS, the application menu would blink, but that was small and out of the way. Why not bring back an option like that? I know it can be customized, but it requires a lot of backdoor work.
5. OS X and up are just less friendly. There's no charm left in anything, even the error messages. Remember the playful "oops" with the alias error message in the old days? That's gone, as though our friendly coworker left and was replaced by a cold, serious ice cube.
6. Likewise, there's a lot less fun in the new OS. Gone are things like the hilarious alert sounds, the crazy fonts, and the zany desktop pictures.
7. The Apple menu still isn't customizable. I miss having a calculator and the scrapbook within reach no matter what program I'm using. Why put another jumbo icon in the dock? Soon, it becomes as messy as the Launcher or At Ease from the old system.
I begrudgingly use OS X because I can't use OS 9 on a new machine. I really wish Copland would have made it. At least I still have an iBook with Microsoft Office that can run from a battery.
