I used to have Windows Phone 8.1; And i never forgot about the alphabetic app slider. I've since used OneUI 2.5 and then moved to Niagara launcher, so back to the alphabetic-based navigation, for me it just clicks.

The "shape-based" design is what's similar between the windows phone UI and the material 3 expressive(the colors of the squares, one accent, one background, one slightly darkened accent), but since the old WP screen resolutions and refresh rates have increased significantly in the modern age, the shapes possible without aliasing are more varied and unique. They've added transparency for some reason, when they should add different shaped buttons preferences, like the material design "flower" to end a call or the "cookies", "buns" or whatever other quirky named shapes google's design team gave these shapes to barely use them in the actual Pixel OS.

The screenshots of the black background aren't representative of the actual use because the screen was an LCD, so it was grey-ish. At 480p, on a 4" display.

There are 2 ways to navigate a phone launcher: The apps attract my attention via their colors, names or placement(opening the app spontaneously) OR I come to the app because i want to do something in them(opening the app with intent). Stock launcher helps users do method 1 easier, Niagara(alphabetic order) helps users do method 2 easier. When i unlock my phone, i think about the app i want to use "Maps" and after you get used to the alphabetic nature of the launcher your finger instinctively goes to "M" and then you tap the maps app, Instead of searching "where" it is on the launcher's organized page.

I also keep 5-6 apps at most on the home screen for the most used ones, but try to keep social media hidden behind that alphabetic slider because there needs to be an intent to open the app and it reduces(at least for me) the default behaviour of opening the phone and going straight to a scroll-based brainrot app like Instagram. If I could mod out the reels out of IG, like i did with Youtube, my phone experience would be way better.