I agree, I never really liked Metro and the minimalism of Material design doesn't vibe with me either. It's mostly a personal taste thing though, I know several others who do like minimalism.
About it being weird to be nostalgic for Windows 7, it's not to me, but I think it has to do with how it was the last OS I used that didn't involve either several awful bugs to the point of unusability (Windows 10) or requiring extensive knowledge of how the system works (Linux) to daily-drive it; so I guess I look at it fondly as the last time I was "computer-innocent", so to say.
ehhh, unfortunately I've met more than my fair share of people who unironically like Stalin.
Lots of actually good communist figures out there and they go out of their way to choose the homophobic drunk domestic abuser who kept a literal child rapist as his right-hand man.