[magnuspaaske]

I think the difference with earlier UI redesigns is that the supposed benefit of liquid glass is the whole opacity thing, where several things are laid on top of each other while trying to show what's underneath. That just creates a much more messy interface, making it harder to see what's going on since they've dropped UI-classics like using contrast to make text readable. That's also why the setting to tune down liquid glass is found in accessibility and not, say, display preferences.

I'm a bit too old to have been privvy to any Win XP design backlash, but I think the more apt comparison is with Windows Vista, where transparency was also a major part of the design philosophy (usability be damned). We have pretty good ideas about what makes a good UI/UX and none of those ideas involve using transparency to make readability worse while also not really making what's under the half-transparent element visible or readable.