not what I recall
Win2K was the first attempt to unify the two lines in a new OS release, but home users essentially revolted because they didn't like the security provisions of the OS (logging in, for instance). Microsoft was not getting anywhere near the needed uptake, so it threw some fancy new crap on top of the Win98 codebase without sufficient testing just to get something out the door that home users would find comforting in its familiar dumbed-down state, and called it Windows Millennium Edition. Meanwhile, they worked on something a bit less thrown-together, providing dumbed-down interface options with rounded corners and glossy effects, as a second attempt at unifying the product lines, and a little over a year after Win2K they had WinXP.
Under the hood, WinXP (no service pack) was essentially indistinguishable from Win2K. Only the Fisher-Price widget set and other home user oriented interface nonsense significantly differed. SP1 and SP2 edged WinXP closer to what Microsoft had originally intended to be the next release after Win2K, which is why by the time SP2 was released it was essentially a different OS than the original WinXP release (though it had the same skin).
Discounting the changes made in service packs, Win2K was actually the better OS between it and WinXP. The rapid obsolescing of Win2K is what gave people the impression it did not measure up to WinXP, because it did not get the same attention to improvement over time. The biggest changes pushed out to Win2K in its service packs were EULA alterations. If Win2K had gotten the same sort of technical attention over time as WinXP (but without the "push it toward a new OS" growth curve), I'm sure it would have continued to be the better OS, in fact. Instead, it got left in the swamps to moulder.
