My thoughts exactly! Except I wouldn't call it bling, I'd call it a hideous Fisher Price aesthetic.

I stuck with 2000 as long as I could before gaming (and maybe.. a certain version of Visual Studio?) eventually forced a switch to XP (with the "classic" theme).

The only XP feature I miss in 2000 is the ability to align icons to a grid.

Direct3D 9.0c

It was also supported on Win2k. For D3D 10 you have a point though.

DirectX 10 required Vista

I remember being gifted Shattered Horizon (a DX10 launch title) and thinking "it really doesn't look that great"

Halo 2 for Vista also required DX10 even though the original Xbox was hardware DX 8.1 only