Yes, IIRC System Preferences was fine (hopefully not rose-tinted glasses), it became the current piece of shit when it was reborn as iOS-sibling System Settings, in Ventura?

  > then they rewrote it

they keep doing this, and everything gets worse for it; i remember when they rewrite mDNSResponder and internet connectivity went to hell... and the ux in system preferences is atrocious... just text labels and lists everywhere, no attention to detail.

the people who built/designed/managed the rollout osx and nextstep were a totally different breed imo