The thing is, X has all the features that MS Windows' GUI has, plus more. It's the application developers combined with the lack of a consistent UI spec that have ``ruined'' it, IMO.

Okay I wasn't saying that X itself is responsible. I'm saying the net result is that if someone puts me in front of a box and says "this is a UNIX box" and asks me to run an application I've never seen before, I have very few things I can be confident in when I go to use it. With Windows, unless the developers have specifically disabled standard controls, or replaced them with non-standard counerparts, I have no such problems.

To be clear, here are a few things that are inconsistent across UNIX GUI's:

1) Does TAB work to get between fields on a form?
1a) Is the TAB order consistent?
2) Will keyboard shortcuts work in standard controls? (combo boxes, text boxes, etc.) i.e. Can I press "Up" and "Down" to scroll through a combo/listbox? It's ironic that on an OS that sprang from the command line, often keys don't work for these simple widgets.
3) Do menus have alt-key shortcuts? 99% of the time they do on Windows, with X11 apps it's closer to 60%.
4) The hotkeys that switch between windows, minimize them, etc., IF PRESENT, always seem to be different.
5) The very functionality of minimizing a window differs. Some window managers "iconify", some have a taskbar that it minimizes to like Windows.

I could go on. I realize that some of these are due to programmers who choose not to set these things up right, but why does it seem to work more often in Windows apps than it does on X-based apps?

Again, I think X Windows is the defacto substandard. It's what's there, and it's too late to change it.

I understand that X is just one layer, and the widget libs and intermediate layers are really where the ball has been dropped. But I think specifying one and only one GUI is what made Windows successful on the desktop, and easy to use for your average user.

Trillian and WinAMP are cases where they throw ease-of-use out in favor of customization. My point is that by default, Windows gives you consistency, it's up to you to defeat that consistency by downloading the Britney Spears WinAMP skin. Although I'm sure you'd know where to click on her...

My point is that on UNIX, you have to work to make it standard, and on Windows, you have to work to make it customizable. I can see why each can be seen as both a strength and a weakness, but I think it's easier to make things customizable in Windows than it is to make them standard on UNIX.