I had used windows for decades prior to that. Never been a windows admin professionally, but definitely new my way around.

I've had my desktops with reasonable uptime as well, but it was on win7 (and probably 10). However, system uptime is not everything. Things running within that system have to keep running as well and they don't.

I think thr closest comparison I can give is upgrading speakers - you can't really tell a higher quality speaker plays your music any better until months pass, you get used to it and then hear the same track on a previous set. It's night and day.