Is it just a default theme difference, or is the current version actually less themable?
Also, the person you replied to mentioned Moksha; that's a fork of Enlightenment 17 (which is what at least two of your cool-looking example screenshots appear to be from).
Enlightenment today (https://www.enlightenment.org/_media/aa/shot-2021-12-13_17-4...) looks nowhere nearly as cool as it used to:
https://imgur.com/enlightenment-are-we-posting-throwbacks-de...
http://robert.thegeakes.co.uk/images/elive.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E17_screenshot.jpg
https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/fq4y3c/e17_found_...