If Steam policy is as you say, then we can certainly blame Steam for the UI being bad—we can say “Steam policies enforce bad UIs”—but in no way whatsoever does that make the UI less bad, nor does it make a hypothetical UI just like this one except with English text any less strictly superior.
I do not agree that “things are almost never strictly superior”. In my experience (and UX design and software development is what I do for a living), things are often strictly superior. People’s reasons for not doing the strictly superior thing are bad reasons much more often than they are good reasons.
If Steam policy is as you say, then we can certainly blame Steam for the UI being bad—we can say “Steam policies enforce bad UIs”—but in no way whatsoever does that make the UI less bad, nor does it make a hypothetical UI just like this one except with English text any less strictly superior.
I do not agree that “things are almost never strictly superior”. In my experience (and UX design and software development is what I do for a living), things are often strictly superior. People’s reasons for not doing the strictly superior thing are bad reasons much more often than they are good reasons.