[michaell2]

one of the tradeoffs involved is between general expressiveness of the framework and ui unobstrusiveness. E.g. direct manipulation "naked objects" interface with fully automated objects placement on screen is quite generic but fairly ugly. My http://www.nestgrid.org user interface pattern improves on that by allowing free form editing of quasi html page, hence providing for mostly manual placement of objects, but it's still no more "unobtrusive" than Excel is. That is, it takes getting used to.