Mac did have a better OS than Win 95 -Win98 It was smoother and crashed less.
The difference was that Windows still ran DOS programs, 5.25" floppy disks etc... They made the decision to maintain backwards compatibility.
Mac decided to drop support regularly for what they considered "outdated software and technology." For example: when USB drives came out they canceled support for 3.5" floppies in their OS. Machines that had a 3.5" drive installed could no longer use it. Put a floppy drive in and nothing happened.
Although Mac was a smoother more stable OS, windows had more functionality and greater compatability. Windows was a far superior product because of it. Even with the regular apearance of the blue screen of death.
Linux at the time also suffered from being a terminal based OS. Too much like DOS for way too long. I used it for specific tasks where it excelled at.