In some ways yes. I don’t think there was an OS that was that much clean looking and without bloat while having a good base. The basic install only gave you what you really need, and there’s some beauty in that.

I guess text-based Debian install would be comparable for servers, but that’s it.

That said I don’t think we necessarily went backwards, but just in different direction that some people dislike, and that’s OK, nowadays we have options anyway.