The issue is that whenever they strike a good balance and then release something new, they feel they have to change things in order for it to feel new. Windows 10 was a good product through it's cycle and it actually kept getting better. They only had to focus on the stuff it didn't do or didn't do as well as other OS's and make them exclusive to windows 11 if they wanted to force it's adoption. Explorer with tabs, new task manager, getting rid of the old control panel, all these things they didn't have ready at launch.
So instead of an incremental familiar evolution that you don't feel going forward, but would feel if you went backwards (try windows 7 now, or even the first windows 10 release and you'll see)
Instead you have a good release and then a shit one done by people who don't get it. Windows 11 UI ideas were lifted from Windows 10X which was meant for, you guessed it: tablets. There's a reason it wasn't it's own OS... It feels like a fisherprice UI.
It's also the second time they fall for this shit as Windows 8 was crap (albeit not as bad as people made it out to be) because they chose to target tablets/touch. Windows 8 to it's credit did more incremental under the hood modifications "scaling, tile ui, ultra high defintion display support, metro apps, RT version) that are still there to this day, windows 11 at launch was all cosmetic.
They're forcing a tablet mode onto people on a desktop. And when you look at it that way, stuff like not being able to have the start menu on top suddenly make sense. For a tablet.