On the contrary, linux desktops have IMHO vastly regressed since then (in regards to "cool" factor). I remember when the compiz cube desktop was everywhere; now it feels like everything is bland in comparison.
Yup that was a great demonstration of 3d graphics too. That reminds me all those years in the late 90s and early 2000s when I spent countless hours trying to get the graphics driver working properly with X. Kept running the Gears demo to see if it had sped up, but no, it was still extremely slow.
Still have muscle memory of commands like glxinfo, xdpyinfo etc. ;-)
Actually, that's the funny thing - the reason I qualified that we've regressed specifically in the cool factor is that the rest of it has (mostly) done great, and today the drivers (and hardware, I guess) are in a great place, so we easily could do the fanciest graphics you could ask for, but...
