The reasons I feel Office 2000, XP, 2003, were better because:
Word XP offered great tools to make a professional webpage. It was easy to add photos or hyperlinks. Office Word 2007 and up is not compatible with webpages you made using Word XP. Also, It is impossible to make a web page on Word 2007, 2010, 2013, it looks
good when you're making it but when you save it, then open it in a web browser everything is messed up and out of place. It just worked on Word XP. PowerPoint XP, 2003 had a huge pile of themes for your slides. Office 2000, XP, 2003 included Office assistants
that were awesome, entertaining and much better than a boring search box.
And you said
"Even if you could obtain a legitimate copy of Works 6, it would not be compatible with any modern version of Windows. Works 8 or 9 (if you can find either of those) will run on Win 7 & 8, though. See: "
Why would I want to install Office 2000, XP, or 2003 on 7 or 8 if I can run it on one of my Windows XP computers?