That depends on how you define progress. If you are talking about efficiency of getting things done, then I would say the move to GUI/mouse based interfaces as the standard is a step in the wrong direction. As is the to a composting window manager. I'm not saying there are not uses where these systems are more efficient, but for most cases they are less efficient.

However, these are examples of improved usability for inexperienced users. For example, typing "cp -r important /mnt/thumbdrive" is more efficient than opening the file explorer, copying 'important', navigating to 'thumbdrive' and pasting (especially with tab completion), however it is far easier for a new user.

In the same way, it looks like Microsoft is again trading productivity for usability. Unfourtuantly, it is very difficult to avoid the trade-off, because productivity comes from the interface making commands as short as possible, and making the feedback contain as little non-content information as possible. Where as usability comes from making the input verbose/forgiving (which requires repetition) and the output needs to provide information on how to use the interface, which takes away from the ability to output content.

For example, vim is a highly productive editor, there is 1 line at the bottom for non-content information, and the input is short and (necessarily) cryptic. You also have gedit, another plain-text editor, however, instead of the cryptic key bindings, it has a slow and easy interface. So "ESC /foo/bar/g" becomes "(hand to mouse) Search>>Replace (hand to keyboard) foo (hand to mouse) (mouse move, click)(hand to keyboard) bar (hand to mouse) (mouse move, click) (mouse move, click)" Or, if you are good with key commands, geddit has "^H, foo TAB TAB bar TAB*7 enter ALT+F4", still slower then vim, and it takes up more precious space.