I’ve never heard these criticisms about Windows before. My challenge to the author would be to address the much more serious criticisms of Windows that have been frustrating real users and have been left unresolved. Address the forced Microsoft login in Windows 11. Even walled garden Apple doesn’t force that in their desktop OS. Address the pre-installed junkware games that plagued Windows 10. Address the Bing and Ed…
I can guarantee you that Raymond had zero input on any of these decisions. He values fundamentals, quality, and customer satisfaction more than anybody. But ultimately, is just an "individual contributor" engineer down in the trenches following orders. He probably feels the same way you do about this stuff. The real question for me is, why does a famous person like him, with so many options open to him about where he works and what he works on, continue slogging away in Redmond.
My best guess is that he has devoted most of his working life to Windows, and it would be painful give up on it. He has lived through many dark periods, i.e. ME, Vista, Windows 8, and is probably optimistic about the pendulum swinging back towards quality/fundamentals eventually.