If anything I use frequently decided to implement this I don't think I would mind, so long as there was some key combination or option somewhere that would temp

If anything I use frequently decided to implement this I don't think I would mind, so long as there was some key combination or option somewhere that would temporarily revert the UI back to it's initial state. Think that would be a must if I wanted to do something like follow a tutorial or explain to a friend how to do something over the phone. I don't know if it would be the best option for people who like everything to behave the same all the time though. And messing with peoples spatial understanding of menus and things can often annoy them. Maybe the process should be opt-in? The idea of the growing search box is interesting, but what about one that kind of decays? It begins to shrink without usage until it reaches some point and then disappears. A good metaphor would be muscles, use them and they grow, don't lose them and they atrophy. I think non-IT oriented folk should be able to work out whats going on with enough visual cues. Especially if it becomes a common enough concept in software. Edit: clarified a few things