Re: NT was the server OS and Win 95 the desktop OS.
Not quite.
NT was the commercial product and Win95 was supposed to be the consumer product. They had NT desktops for at least 4 and I think as far back as 3.5. But the commercial world preferred Win95 to the NT desktops so the model didn't take off. That gave the marketing department the leverage to backport Win95 features into NT for XP.
I will grant bad coding is at the heart of all the MS problems in that time period. These days it seems to me more of a fingers in ears whilst singing "Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah! I can't hear you!"