I've observed something not too different. I suspect it might be that I and my users are at different levels of zoom with respect to the product. They really d

I've observed something not too different. I suspect it might be that I and my users are at different levels of zoom with respect to the product. They really don't think about it at all except for when they need to get specific tasks done that the product does well. They are max zoomed out. I necessarily am zoomed in to the entire product, from every lowly line of code all the way up to the aggregate product. I am max zoomed in. This leads to a sense of alienation when I observe the relationship between my users and my product. Sometimes it's simpler to think that I actually don't know my own product, so different is the perspective. Really it's a matter of how much the product occupies in my mind versus theirs; they are using it opportunistically and would prefer to spend as little time as possible thinking about it. Which I suppose is a good argument against over-engineering; for a mass market product, core features beyond the third will only be used by the developers. Anyhow, all that is to say I can understand your comment, and I often think that I'm lucky the emacs developers or GvR don't look over my shoulder when I use their software because they would give their cats Nobel prizes. :)