>>That makes perfect sense. But ad-aware does not have to deal with the data densities we have to. One approach is to offer a user preference to hide detail, but then the issue would be the visual (or layout) balance.

Yep the data densities are the challenge, but once in a while you get an app that allows you lots of space, which is fun. But, even at the higher densities you can sometimes use this concept. The game tab in mine is an example. Originally this was two rows of controls, by shortening the labels I was able to push them over to the right and group them into sections. Then I had room to label the sections with a fair amount of free space around them. The result is that you can find what your looking for much faster and it looks better.

>>One way around would be to remove the borders (looks less crowded) and blend rather than contrast input and control areas. I have even seen some really cool retro-ish GUIs that have green on black (like the old monochrome days) representations.

I'll have to play with the borderless idea I think I could have some fun with that. One thing I do now is to push related fields like name and address together so that the borders blend into more of a grid like control.

>>Did you get to check out the Word auto-shape fill effects stuff yet?

I just did, I usually use Photoshop for this, but word was very fast at it and easy to use. Cool trick for how to do them, especially since many people do not have access to high end image tools. The one I made gave me some problems on the cut and past into paint. It came across badly dithered. And saving to HTML and grabbing the image also had the same effect. I ended up doing a printscreen and grabbing it that way, which worked fine.