Ok i think I've landed somewhere after all this. Consensus seems to be thet UX, support and design genuinely DID mature - but driven by competition, not goodwill. The underlying protection is exactly as thin as it always was, and most of the "licenses" are decorative so "matured" is true for the parts you can see and false for the parts that actually bite you.
So yeah I was being too optimistic and better looking wild west is still the wild west. thanks for the reality check, even the rambly bits had gold in them (no offence genesis)