Seems to me we've got a slight design lag with browsers and other utility programs.
Even as far back as 2000, 3D computer games were extremely common and becoming the norm.
Still, today the world of programs and websites is primarily flat.
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I don't mean to say that a full 3d experience would be superior.
But features that utilize 3d or persistent world elements (imagine if your tabs were organized spatially in anything other than a straight line) would potentially revolutionize browsing, and also make it suck less.
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If you take a game world like World of Warcraft, it has geometry that allows you to navigate spatially in a way that feels intuitive to the human brain.
You can remember your way in these games, in a way very few people can in a traditional website architecture.
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"Where do I go to mine Saronite?" - or some other pointless, nerdy question - is something you can trivially access in consciousness, once learned.
"Where the fuck was that page with that quote by Alan Watts?" - yeah, good luck with that if it's not open in a tab or bookmarked.
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People hate messy environments, though, which is probably a big reason why this stuff hasn't taken off before.
It needs to look neat (and potentially flat) on the surface, but open up spatially when you want to move somewhere else. That would rock, if executed well.
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In the specific example of World of Warcraft, players lost much of their enthusiasm for the in-game world when they added portals to teleport you from A to B.
This is essentially how hyperlinking works, if you think about it.