Jade,
You mean this? You're right. We should read it. Again and again.
I couldn't agree more with your rant. To the user the UI is the application. He doesn't give a damn if the engine behind search results is using bitmap indeces or trained monkeys, as long as everything works as he expects, and reasonably fast. This is too often forgotten.
Another good example of terrific UI design is the new Blogger.com design. The UI is very slick and rat simple, and still they have even the context sensitive help right in the forms.
I agree that we're moving to the right direction but I think this is an issue that can't be stressed enough. I'm all in favor of Bruce's idea about creating a top-down process for package developing, starting from the functionality seen by the user. Current approach seems to me a bit too data-centric (i.e. bottom-up) to pay enough attention to really great interaction design. The deepness and powerfulness must not be an excuse for an overly complex UI.
