15 years ago, most distros did not work out of the box on most *current* hardware then. The common quip in forums then was: "Oh, you did not check all the hardware for Linux compatibility before you bought it? It's your fault then". Then we got spoilt by Ubuntu which worked out of the box on most hardware.
Desktop effects did not work on most computers for many years or at least made the desktop unstable after some use.
I think you are pining for a past that never was. You *could* make old hardware work with Linux, but only with some effort. You always toned down your fancy desktops when running on old hardware. If you want to make old hardware work, try a stable, mainstream distro like Debian or Ubuntu, not some "preview" distro. For that old hardware, I'd go with Lubuntu desktop.