No, it isn’t, exactly. For example, VBA menu commands that were used in 2003 and earlier no longer work, and they have to be repaired to be functional in 2007. That’s a huge pain in the rear for developers like myself who now have to write two versions of every menu/ribbon command, one for 2003 and earlier users, and one for 2007 and later users. What’s more, those commands are written in two different languages. I mean, really.
I love Word Perfect, but please, let’s not go back that far! I’m perfectly 
happy with the current version.
And I did my dissertation on LaTeX. Fuck that shit - I’d rather have written out the formulas by hand.
You’re mistaken - we’re saying that we don’t think some of the cosmetic changes are an improvement on what they replaced.
That there are other new features and functions is probably great on the whole, but those new functions could have been implemented regardless of changes to the UI, so whilst they are a benefit of the upgrade, and the new UI is compulsory in the upgrade, the new features are not a benefit of the new UI.
I acknowledge that some people (a minority) are forever going to hate the ribbon, but that’s expected for any significant upgrade or update of a product people have intensely used.
Still, Microsoft commissioned an independent company to survey users and found this:
81% said the new UI was an improvement.
95% are equally or more satisfied from the previous version.
60% said their productivity increased, while 33% said it was the same.
80% of users stated their productivity returned to where it was or increased by 4 weeks; 53% said it took them less than 2 weeks.
Users saw an average reduction of 17% in time spent once their productivity level returned using the new UI.
So a majority of people are happy once they use it for any significant amount of time. I hate to see what happens when you people upgrade to Windows 7 and realize how different the taskbar is now… 
I don’t spend a significant amount of time using the taskbar, so Windows 7 is no big deal - IMO, it’s trying too hard to be pretty, and I don’t need that, but as long as it stays out of my face, I’ll be able to work with it. I probably won’t bother with Windows 7 at home though.
Considering all an operating system has to do is run the software under it without crashing I don’t see this as a problem unless MS has changes the names of everything. You remember when the file managing function was called FILE MANAGER and then they changed the name to MY COMPUTER. :dubious:
Keep in mind the reason 7 came out is because Vista wouldn’t run older versions of Microsoft Products.
I’m really asking: What’s superior about it? As far as I’m concerned, I wasn’t bothered about the file format at any point, and any inconvenience on the issue feels forced and dumb.
Amen, brother! I wonder if I still have WP51 somewhere?
So they rewrote a lot of the same functions and to make people notice they made it look different.
So, from a 3 second perusal of your link, it’s a document for total document nerds. Do you have any reasons yourself, or are you relying on the verbiage you linked to?
File sizes are significantly smaller, and since it is XML based (I believe) it is more cross-platform than previous formats.