Because Jobs was still in control. As I understand it, this was a constant tension between Ive and Jobs. Of course Ive design eventually dominated after Jobs' death.
It appears to me that they're rolling back Ive's decisions, slowly but surely. There are skeuomorphic icons in Monterey, and I think there's fewer borderless crap.
The one thing that does really grind my gears though — they've replaced all purpose-made icons in toolbars and such with some "universal" ones that completely disregard the existence of the pixel grid. There's literally not a single line in these icons that isn't blurry af.
