[Quoth]

There is a happy medium between crazy overly photographic or retro machine Skeuomorphic GUI elements and stupid too abstract totally flat icons and symbols that have no connection to reality outside of the idiot that did them.

Dial tones are still common and nothing to do with GUI elements. A Rolodex was always stupid, because in many places no-one ever saw them except on old US Movies.

A calculator still looks the same as 50+ years ago and people still use them. A stylised 3.5" floppy isn't much good for Save, nor a stylised HDD image. But file drawers (and folders in them) are still common and won't go away. Nor will locks, open doors, radio aerials, microphones, loudspeakers, keyboards, cameras or batteries. I read that Win11 has messed up the battery charge indicator, something that worked well on Windows laptops over 25 years ago.