I do see a lot of Windows software and utilities that have tried to copy it; there's a set of Telerik controls implementing most of the pattern.
It's just unfortunate, because it started the trend of reducing and hiding functionality. With less examples of what high density software looked and worked like, people don't even know what they are missing.
Then they briefly tried to push the one interface for every device holy grail with Windows 8 and UWP. Thankfully that was abortove, but it's still poisoned things more and hurt information density in its fallout.
How does the ribbon hide functionality compared to menus? I’m a big fan of it because it exposed functionality like styles, using large buttons that intuitively show how the function works, to people who were never going to independently discover them and customise their menu for easier access.
Ribbons aren't easily scannable, because the controls don't line up. Menus line up vertically, toolbars line up horizontally. Granted multi-level menus are evil because what you're looking for may be in a submenu.
Yes, I’ve been using it almost every day for a decade, so I know where everything is by this point – but even when it was released I liked it almost immediately, because it surfaced useful style, paragraph spacing and table editing functions that used to be buried in menus. I prefer the ribbon interface in LibreOffice now, too. Next time you get lost (and it still happens to me just as it did in the menu era), I suggest using the search box instead of your memory of Office 2003.
If Ribbons are implemented well, they're great. But often they're not, and then they're terrible. It takes a lot of work to properly organise a Ribbon for a complex program. Microsoft nailed it for Office, but programs like AutoCAD are still not well done.
Microsoft have put together an awesome guide to the Ribbon. Even if you're not making one, it's a great read that really goes into the reasons it exists: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-r.... I came across this page by chance when I was in high school, and I think it was what sparked my interest in user interface and user experience design.
It's just unfortunate, because it started the trend of reducing and hiding functionality. With less examples of what high density software looked and worked like, people don't even know what they are missing.
Then they briefly tried to push the one interface for every device holy grail with Windows 8 and UWP. Thankfully that was abortove, but it's still poisoned things more and hurt information density in its fallout.