It was a very explicit interface. It was not as sexy as a 3D composited one, but it did not play peek-a-boo. Scrolling through a list, like downloads on a web page, you would see 20 or 30 line items, not two or three. It also worked on a slow CPU without a GPU. We have lost something since those highly-optimized 2D interfaces, from the same era as Super Nintendo Mode 7 affine transform and After Dark/Xscreensaver 2.5D graphics.