I think that it is more of an issue with conditioning. As you and others have mentioned, one could indeed learn Gimp's UI with enough practice. However, I'd say

I think that it is more of an issue with conditioning. As you and others have mentioned, one could indeed learn Gimp's UI with enough practice. However, I'd say that someone who picked up Photoshop, or MS Word, or any complex piece of software for the first time, then it would be a horrible UI. The education system (at least here in Australia) heavily focuses on Adobe and Microsoft products, so high school kids are familiar with them from a youngish age. If they were taught general principles of word processing or photo editing, perhaps with a few different programs, then I feel that everybody would be better able to cope with different UI's much more easily. Incidentally, (as a non-professional) I found Gimp much easier to grok than Inkscape or Scribus (coming from a Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign education/background).