I don't really agree about the importance of putting effort into these things- almost every user wants well-designed, polished interfaces for launching applicat

I don't really agree about the importance of putting effort into these things- almost every user wants well-designed, polished interfaces for launching applications, reading email, surfing the web, listening to music, etc, and a very large percentage of users only want that. You could well be right about a lack of discipline in writing and rewriting, rather than improving what's there. But then I look at elementary OS, which has focused on doing exactly what you are complaining about, and that seems to be a major success.