You’re not looking far back enough:) I see it more as a new Aqua from OSX Cheetah (2000 CE)
This is a slight tangent, but 20 years ago I had a nightmare in which I got hit by a tram, died and travelled in time into a world where every computer was running Windows Vista. In other words, fair enough, you might be onto something here after all.
>Aqua from OSX Cheetah
I've never used OSX, but I would guess from screenshots that it didn't do dynamic layered gaussian blur of large screen regions in realtime, which would've been too much for the hardware of the year 2000.
That is true, but don't forget water is the essence of moisture.
Also, those scrollbars were quite impressive for their time.
I always thought they were extremely kitschy, just like the Windows XP window frames.
The 2000 CE bit made me laugh! And yes, Windows Vista was a proper nightmare.