In June 2008 Apple announced Mac OS X Snow Leopard, proudly boasting that it would have "no new features". Instead of piling on new things, Snow Leopard aimed to build on the success of its predecessor, Leopard, opting to focus on under-the-hood performance and stability improvements throughout the system.
El Capitan was a half decent OS too — it just had the downside that it had already been App Stored / signature locked / iPhoneized.
Worth noting that 10.6.7 was the last good OS; 10.6.8 contained the App Store update and was signature locked.
I’ve just felt that I’ve had to learn the OSes in a different way after they released Mavericks. I get that it comes from starting using Mac in the cat era, but it’s annoying to feel you need to learn a new OS every time you update instead of just using it naturally.
First Mac OS I learned was System 4; back then, you’d be learning new ways of doing things multiple times a year.
It’s nice knowing I’m not the oldest person here