Early windows versions were actually very well designed to not get in your way and be both minimalistic and usable. Things went south after win2k, any OS 'feature' added after that is considered bloat in my book.
I am not sure I'd agree with you on that - they were a lot smaller than Windows now, but it was never minimalistic in any sense. Even Windows 1 incorporated several programs (Write, Paint, that cards thing, etc) that, while convenient, wasn't exactly minimal. Every version added something extra (overlapping windows, Program Manager, a trashcan and a desktop-as-a-place) without removing anything (except tiling windows, which weren't fashionable back then, or practical at VGA resolutions). Windows now is a nightmare of layers that seem to go all the way down to NT 4. I wouldn't mind that, but the way the GUI inherits the theme from whatever generation it was first built on creates a jarring and confusing experience. I respect backwards compatibility, but I would suggest Microsoft looked at IBM's MVS and its descendants to learn how it's properly done.
