I, also, have seen plenty of failed UIs designed by ignorant, inexperienced devs.
Complaining that something is wrong because it differs from MS demonstrates just such ignorance. Users not understanding that something could be different from MS and therefore better is how we got here.
Ultimately adoption is all that matters. If your new and better interface isn't an obvious game changer to the lowest common denominator user of your product to get them to see the value and not long for their comfort zone, it’s not really new and better.
If you rarely use a hammer, but change the way a hammer operates, claim it’s better, but the folks who use hammers everyday all day disagree, it’s not the hammer users who are ignorant.
