> Beginners quickly got lost in all of the folders and other users had a lot of trouble deciding whether they were looking at the actual file system and its files or just links to actual files.

TBH, I often have no idea whether anything is really a file/directory or some fake thing in Explorer, and this aspect has gotten worse over the years. Now they make it hard for users to find their home folder and present a bunch of virtual things that are confusing. Home, Gallery, Music, Videos - all virtual apparently. Moving things into OneDrive that used to be in the home folder. The Downloads folder, if clicked from the side panel, doesn't have a path, etc.