The "every other major Windows release" rule has held since Windows 2000.
2000 take.
ME, skip.
XP, take.
Vista, skip.
7, take.
8, skip.
10, take.
11? Definitely skip.
2000 take.
ME, skip.
XP, take.
Vista, skip.
7, take.
8, skip.
10, take.
11? Definitely skip.
Windows 8 had a controversial UI but was respectful of user choices.
I have a hard time imagining a new Windows version not getting worse on respecting user consent.
On the consumer side, there was 95, then 98, then 98 SE (Second Edition), and then ME.
...and with the exception of ME, all of those were actual improvements.
NT 3.1 - Good(?).
NT 3.5 - Bad(?).
NT 4.0 - Good(?).
2000 - Bad(?!)
XP - Good(?).
Vista - Bad.
7 - Good.
8 - Bad.
8.1 - Good(???).
10 - Bad.
11 - Good(?).
And before anyone asks, yes this is a bad meme and doesn't even make any sense.
I don't think it quite works though, because NT4 and NT5 (2k) were both good, although NT4 was hard to use with many games and win2k was better but still had some issues. I didn't hate XP on release and people grew to like it. So that's kind of 3 hits in a row, but then vista bad, 7 good, 8.x bad, 10 good, 11 bad kind of fits the pattern.