If MS had put any focus on allowing skins/themes for Windows, the touch market would have just been an extra feature. There is no technical reason they couldn’t have, as evidenced by the third-party apps that allowed legacy skins on previous versions, such as 8 and 10. But they needed that lock-in and forced experience, rather than giving people the choice.
We’ll have to disagree with the ribbon being an improvement, but the rest definitely count.