The short answer is: stuff stayed where you put it. Every icon, every window, opened up exactly where you left it last time you saw it.

So you had the option of remembering "Excel is the icon below the Special menu" and you could be confident that the Excel icon would always be located below the Special menu, exactly where you put it.

One of the reasons I switched from OS X to Windows is that Apple threw that brilliant design in the garbage. Shame.