1. configuration options are usually a symptom of a bad UI. But sometimes they are necessary.<p>Personally I get why Gnome 3 or Unity developers have cut down on configuration options, but on the other hand, for example it's really frustrating in Unity not being able to move the left bar to the right. On OS X or on Windows (7 at least) this is extremely easy to do, as you can place that bar wherever you want it, to the left, to the right, at the bottom, wherever it feels more comfortable to you.<p>So it's good that Gnome developers strive for interfaces that work well out of the box, but some choices have been rather dumb.<p>2. developers do listen to users, but unfortunately every user is different and have different preferences and needs, so whom do you listen to? Also, users aren't really aware of what they really need, so you have to read between the lines. This is a sixth sense that many of us lack.<p>You need to have a strong dictator with good taste to drive good design. It's pretty sad that we don't have a dictator like Linus Torvalds for Gnome. Now that's a guy that would have driven things forward.<p>3. it happens with us technical people that every time interfaces change, we bitch about it. Well I decided to embrace change. I like Gmail's new Compose. I like most UI decisions from Ubuntu/Unity. There I said it.<p>Good design doesn't necessarily feel right from the start, because the lack of familiarity gets in the way. But the ultimate pursuit is that of simplicity, composability and usefulness. So from time to time, we should sacrifice familiarity for the mentioned purposes.<p>On the other hand, there's no excuse for releasing broken interfaces. Gnome fell in the same trap that KDE did when version 4 was released - as in barely functional software getting released to unsuspecting users.