IIRC, the last time I used a new install of LO for the first time, it asked me which interface I preferred instead of defaulting to the old one.

The Ribbon interface is terrible, though. The styles selector doesn't fit the entire button, and it also doesn't resize with your window size, remaining super tiny not capable of displaying three full options simultaneously.

Word at least got that right.

My preferred layout is Sidebar, but even there the style is just a regular dropdown. LibreOffice is fantastic, but they need to put some more work into UX.

Good. Those that want it can enable it. I don't. Takes up too much screen space showing a lot of unnecessary icons

True, but it is a purely aesthetic rearrangement of the menus. It doesn't make it any more straightforward to navigate. Plus it doesn't really function correctly on Windows (and it takes up just as much screen space).

It was a good step when they rolled it out about a decade ago, but they still haven't done the work to make it better organized or show appropriate hierarchy.

It should be by default.