i agree. I think it's the problem that improvements for one group would hurt the other and power-users (man, that sounds stupid!) don't want to develop features

i agree. I think it's the problem that improvements for one group would hurt the other and power-users (man, that sounds stupid!) don't want to develop features that don't provide value for them, or would worsen their experience. I wouldn't want to! I am getting really comfortable with unix and i can say that the transition on a mac is not bad! I started using it with only rudimentary knowledge about how to navigate the shell, but you really don't need it for most parts. When you start digging deeper you explore more and more of the unix-backend until it's like a second face to the computer. SSHing into a server is no inconvenience anymore etc. I think this is the reason for developing simple, stupid GUI programs that help beginner do beginner stuff. They will (sooner or later) obtain knowledge of the terminal, but i think it's critical that the first steps are not too challenging. Note: i am speaking about developers. I don't think non-developers need to know how to navigate the terminal. It just doesn't provide any value for them.