I think the onus should be on the UI designers to present features when they are needed. This means making an effort to model the users' workflow, which is not

I think the onus should be on the UI designers to present features when they are needed. This means making an effort to model the users' workflow, which is not trivial. A good first step can be seen in Lightroom, where the TAB key will hide the tool palettes, leaving the entire (uncluttered) screen available for examining and selecting/ranking photos. Hit TAB gain to get the palettes back when you are ready to use one of the tools. Just putting 20 icons along the edge of a window and washing their hands of it seems like a cop out to me.