Well, there has been studies that quite thoroughly demonstrate thet people indeed in general AUTOMATICALY do think that a prettier interface is easier to use.
They tested this on ATM's in a few countries (i do believe japan and sweeden was there but cant remeber thet clearly where the artoiicle was anuore so i might be a a bit off in memory here) with exactly same capabilities and buttons and people rated the more viasualy pleasing to be 3 times easier to use, altough art the same stroke the time measured efficency meter puts the uglier interface at par or a actualy bit faster with a average uers time 2/3 of what it was in the other. Also when asked people told it was faster to use the pretty one altough it was not scientifivcaly true (just shows how bad most peoples judgement is more than anything else).
Since then theyve tested this more and found that a GUI thats more pleasing can be up to 4 times more frustrating than a ugly gui before you get the sense of it. SO a pretty gui can be totaly CRAP and poeple still feel its better. Theres a downside to this tough, since the design is to make it pretty they too have 2-3 times more likely to design bad guis, and the niceness of pretty does have a tendecy to dissipate over time, so afterooking ta some pretty gui for 3 mnths you have eaten the effect away.*
HOWEVER thet also means that a pretty gui can be 4 tiems slower to work with thena a pretty one before anyybody notices anything, so form pure efficency point of view, pretty dont make for efficient neccerily.
My point being that if you cant make things more efficent then heres no point in investing time in prettyness.
- maybe thets the reason they need nice gui tools to colstantly make it different so thei does not happen
its like masking the fact that yoru gui is crap, to be honest it works on people who arent serious about their stuff. So Word with mothly new gui would eb a super hit amongst pople who use word in limitted capacity, but not necceserily a hardcore wordporcessor user like a writer, or editor.
Ps anyway personaly some of the guis i use for certain artists are actualy HTML, but it has some other cobnsiderations thhan pure effectivity. But the main problem here is that i cant pass selection ists wth the webpage without rebuilding it all the time form maya gui.
Anyway there sLOT taht can be done allready in mel that makes maya prettier for example makeing shelf items glow when mouse is over is totaly possible to do. And many of hem can be maede nicer, but opersonaly i couldnt be bothered. I hardly look at the gui anyway.