As I understood, it’s kind of an isolated fork of the internet (not the protocols but more surface-level stuff) with some changes. Considering how bloated and bad internet is nowadays, I guess it serves the purpose of being a niche alternative. I can’t really understand the actual features and differences of it though so someone else will have to take a look into that.
No. Old UI is terrible. The newest UI with extremely rounded corners is bad too but I’d much rather use it than old stuff.