Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever?

Recently, we had another, weirder take on this same topic.

I liked many of his points in this.

I'm a terminal person mostly because UIs are so inflexible. I can change so many aspects of how my shell behaves, but window placement and virtual desktops are still new and janky in the major systems readily available to consumers.

I don't like the aspect of betting on what systems are capable of in five years, and designing for it. New software should work great on 7-10 year old hardware, especially as that seems to be how long it takes to figure out how to efficiently use hardware.

This was great! I want more of this! Does anyone know of good resources for developers who want to be better at designing intuitive interfaces can go?

I've studied some elements of graphic design in print and typography, but it hasn't really carried over to how I design computer interfaces/programs, and I can never put my finger on exactly what's wrong.