[kuschku]

I absolutely agree with everything you said.

Sadly, that's going to fall on deaf ears, as most people still can't tell aesthetics and design apart.

KDE has all the features and all the buttons. It's what I'd expect a prototype to be like.

Gnome simply reaches good design by just omitting everything that'd be hard to design. One way to do it, but obviously missing a lot of functionality.

Truly good design is making all the bells and whistles feel intuitive. Good design isn't about looks, it's about information hierarchy and structure.

Which is why I love the Windows 9x design so much.