Windows XP was the last good Windows.

I think you're really only remembering XP after SP3. XP in its original form was clunky, buggy and unreliable.

It had zero bloat

Wait are you trying to be funny?

it encouraged you to use an admin account as your daily account.

This is bad. You should not do this, especially not on anything connected to the internet. You should definitely not do this on an XP system connected to the internet.

There was no built in firewall until a later service pack, but you could just opt out of that update.

I've eaten the onion, haven't I?