Good, maybe in two or three more years Windows 11 will be useable. Right on time for Windows 12 to roll out and drag Microsoft users back to the Stone Age again.
That "pattern" (and I know it's probably meant to be more of a joke) is skewed to make it look like it's true. If 98 and 98 SE are separate for example, so should Windows 8.1 be, because it was quite a different beast from 8(.0). Actually, 8.1 was very solid, it had a lot of the "under the hood" improvements that Windows 10 had, but wasn't nearly as bloated.
Windows 10 or 11 are on a similar level of "bloated mess" to me, with Windows 10 having the advantage of an LTSC version existing, which is essentially an official "debloat". I'll probably jump to Windows 11 LTSC when it releases sometime in (likely) 2024.