Win 98: good
Win ME: bad
Win XP: good
Win Vista: bad
Win 7: good
Win 8: bad
Win 9... well, #8 was so bad they had to skip a number
Win 10: good
Win 11: I'm not optimistic. 20+ years predict for badness.
I'll wait until either 1) proven wrong or 2) Win 10 is EOL'ed. I just upgraded, but if I need a new system & it comes with Win 11 then I'll just wipe it out and install 10.
As for 10, I liked 7 more. But 10 was still and improvement over 8, so I think the pattern still holds.
>Win 9... well, #8 was so bad they had to skip a number
If you know what to install to replace the stupid touchscreen interface with a proper start menu (eg. Stardock Start8) and disable metro ui feature, it's a great OS. You get 3/4 of the modern features of Windows 10 without the downsides (eg. telemetry, no control on updates, keyboard layout management, taskbar freezing, etc.) and an interface that's halfway between 7 and 10.
If you don't replace the start menu, I agree it's a dumpster fire and I would never use it.
Win 7: good
Win 8: bad
Win 8.1: good
Win 10: bad (there were early issues)
Win 10 later: good (they were fixed)
Win 10 even later: bad (remember when people's files were being deleted)
Win 10 now: good
Win 11: bad (mainly due to growing pains)
Win 11 soon: good