Yes, 3d file managers were ugly, and hard to use, and didn't really serve any purpose.
But with modern hardware, and with a better HID, and with a better analogy / paradigm / idea, they could come back and be useful.
I don't know what that meaningful use for the 3rd dimension would be, but I'm pretty sure there is one.
(The tactile screenshot is awful. It appears to show a bunch of stuff ordered by name. The TDFSB2 screenshot shows someone "walking" through their home/leo/jpeg directory, with all the jpegs being displayed. Remember that these are tinkering toys, and that things like mice or GUIs were initially weird and horrid. Maybe getting a bunch of smart people working on them would generate useful results?)
Exactly - someone will have to design a new file management functionality that adds real value and also happens to leverage 3D technology.
Window management certainly has benefited from using the GPU, e.g. with real-time thumbnails of applications and enhanced virtual desktops. But these are solutions that were enabled by the GPU, not features that were tacked on simply because GPUs were around to use.
If someone comes up with a new and revolutionary file management paradigm, or even just a useful innovation on the margin of existing file management, and it's one that 3D makes sense for, then great. Until that happens, it's a solution in search of a problem.
But with modern hardware, and with a better HID, and with a better analogy / paradigm / idea, they could come back and be useful.
I don't know what that meaningful use for the 3rd dimension would be, but I'm pretty sure there is one.
(The tactile screenshot is awful. It appears to show a bunch of stuff ordered by name. The TDFSB2 screenshot shows someone "walking" through their home/leo/jpeg directory, with all the jpegs being displayed. Remember that these are tinkering toys, and that things like mice or GUIs were initially weird and horrid. Maybe getting a bunch of smart people working on them would generate useful results?)