Well, of course it's status quo bias. I think the deeper question is whether the bias is justified or not. In 1995 the desktop UI paradigm was still in flux. The paradigm that the world settled on in the mid-90's hasn't changed much in the last 18 years.
Except now it is, driven largely by innovation in device UIs that are not desktop PCs. I think there's a real and valid question as to whether trying to unify a desktop and "tablet" UI makes sense.
That said, I will say that of the recent attempts to come up with a new UI paradigm, I like Gnome 3 the best and it's what I use daily.
The desktop paradigm only has age and video games (via mouse and power) on its side. Once the touch-oriented interfaces become polished, so I don't have to continually swear at my phone when trying to select something or move a file from app to app, I don't really see myself ever using a desktop again (unless required by my job).
I suspect I couldn't use iOS in its current iteration, but a Google Chrome Pixel Book thing with android is pretty close to perfect for me.
It’s not clear what a polished phone interface looks like. For example, I could see such an interface lacking files entirely or giving priority access to communications technologies, wherein this might be wholly inappropriate for the desktop. Also the desktop has a keyboard on its side.
> I could see such an interface lacking files entirely
Now that's a great idea. If you think about it, current file systems are OLD. No transactions (I'm aware of the exceptions, but even those filesystems capable of transactions don't always expose that to the user), we rely on the file name to determine its type, no-or-severely-restricted access to metadata, possible infinite link loops.... I'm sure that the filesystems are implemented excellently, but I really hope we rethink the way we store data. I would much prefer a "flat" filesystem jailed by app and organizable by labels. Or whatever.
This is slightly hilarious because Gnome 3 (and Unity) has excellent keyboard support. You had to install a Quicksilver clone in Gnome 2 to get what Gnome 3 has baked in. And Gnome 3's keyboard search is better all around; faster, uses my whole screen, and it's simpler to switch between various types of entity that I'm searching for.
Except now it is, driven largely by innovation in device UIs that are not desktop PCs. I think there's a real and valid question as to whether trying to unify a desktop and "tablet" UI makes sense.
That said, I will say that of the recent attempts to come up with a new UI paradigm, I like Gnome 3 the best and it's what I use daily.