Why did UI's turn from practical to form over function?
E.g. Office 2003 vs Microsoft 365
It's easy to remember where everything is with a toolbar and menu bar, which allows access to any option in one click and hold move.
Seriously? Big ribbon and massive padding wasting space, as well as the ribbon being clunky to use.
Why did this happen?
You can use OpenOffice which hasn't adopted any new UI since 1998.
Except that OpenOffice has been forked into LibreOffice in like 2010 and has since gotten an optional ribbon UI.