I've been using Finder since 7.5.3. The Finder hasn't changed all that much in that time has it? Comparative to the rest of the OS? What's so different?
As far as a user was concerned, before Mac OS X, the Finder's icons and the files they represented were one object, as were the Finder's windows and the directories they represented. However hard you tried (which you didn't, because you knew a file was the same as its icon), each file had only one icon and each directory only one window. Also, each directory/window had its own position on the screen, size, and layout.
Now, that 1:1 identity is broken. You can have multiple windows showing the content of the same directory. Also, you can have multiple icons on screen 'pointing' to the same file.
This may look like a minor change, but the feel of the UI is very different. It feels much less a direct manipulation interface.
Yes, Mac OS already was slightly inconsistent. Open and save dialogs could show directories and Windows that wer visible in the Finder. However, these felt as part of the application, and were very focused on the task at hand. Icons in those dialogs felt as representations of files, not as the files themselves. Also, there were aliases, but being files, they maintained the 1:1 correspondence between icons and files. Altogether, those things never killed that illusion of 'an icon _is_ a file, a window _is_ a directory'.
Because Mac OS X is a multi-user system, I think Mac OS X had to break this rule (network shares were already stretching the metaphor (almost) beyond breaking years before Mac OS X), but even today, it still feels like a loss to me.
Interesting. I've never felt particularly strongly one way or another about the Finder and I didn't feel the changes as strongly as you and others seemed to.
My personal GUI progression was Mac OS 7.5, RiscOS 3, Windows 9x, Mac OS 8 & 9, BeOS, KDE, Mac OS 10.3, onwards. I didn't see a significant break, but maybe it's because of the detour. It just didn't occur to me that it was anything other than a smooth transition. By the looks of things, a good number of people seem to have noticed the change, and many don't like it. I'm not sure the 'classic' way of doing things was entirely compatible with a command line interface (I get that that's what Lisa and Mac was trying to supersede). But I don't think many doubt the utility of CLIs for 'serious' modern use. Do they?
One thing I do remember is that we've always had symlinks (aliases). I don't remember if they were in System 6 but they were certainly there in System 7.
What I miss is the old school spatial finder [1]. I never liked the Next Workspace Manager, although it was very popular among a certain Unix set Back In The Day; but at least it was consistent and adhered to a certain worldview. Ramming it into the classic Finder just made both types of user miserable; Apple's been backing that decision out slowly (and in favor of the Next-style manager) ever since.
