Musical interfaces, more than any other type of interface seem to try to 'materialise', my guess it's to compensate for the abstract a-material nature of music.

Musical interfaces, more than any other type of interface seem to try to 'materialise', my guess it's to compensate for the abstract a-material nature of music. There are 2 main direction this goes, for one the super slick retro realistic renderings with lots of shaded knobs and sliders, complete with screws and even simulated rack-mounts, and then the (not so numerous) super stylised futuristic and sometimes borderline experimental interfaces. For plugins, the beautiful interface with poetic descriptions could be regarded even more important (for sales) than the actual sound, thus the vst world might be the most 'full of bullshit' realm of software development. From my experience the best musical interface is a dedicated hardware unit. Mouse, keys, and a big screen are generally inadequate and inherently contraproductive, and a small 20x40 lcd should be more than enough as visual info.