[knolan]

I would really disagree, the 2.5–2.7 UI was excellent. It was fast, efficient and extremely customisable to match the style of popular alternatives. The 2.4 era UI was a very different beast however.

The main issues new users have are often related to management of the deliberately non-modal UI which allows you to split the main window up in any way you like, kinda like tmux. With 2.80 tool sidebars now have big clear icons instead of rows of buttons with sometimes impenetrable words written on them.

Ultimately the 2.80 UI is much the same as the 2.79 UI with a more fashionable dark UI and a reworking of some idiosyncratic design choices (changing from right click select to left click select etc).