And Dignan... Remember that Windows has its own share of similarly annoying effects which have similar deactivation steps.

I have to agree with Bitt. And yes, I agree that the whisk-away effect and the icon growing features are annoying, but I think Bitt's got a point about the differing design philosophies between MS and Apple.

I believe that XP's "Luna" interface was supposed to be Microsoft's answer to Aqua. But there's a big difference between the two: Aqua is pleasing to the eye, soothing, uncluttered, and functional. Luna is exactly the opposite on each of those points.

Having spent some of my years doing graphic design, I can recognize the difference between "professional" and "hack". I may not be good at graphic design myself, but I know good design when I see it. And I can tell just by looking: Aqua was designed by a team of professional, talented graphic designers who genuinely wanted to give the interface a unified theme that was clean and stylish. Luna was clearly designed by a group of drunken, color-blind, myopic camels.