These are exactly the issues that Alan Cooper discusses at length in his book.

I hope I did not offend you. I tend to be somewhat of an evangelist on user interfaces. I worked for a rather large software development company that saw users as the enemy. Also, my predecessor in this job got a little carried away with the graphical possibilities of Windows95 that in no way benefited the user. I may have become a little over-sensitive on the issue.

Anyway, I can't recommend Alan's book highly enough. He uses Microsoft applications extensively as examples of good and bad and if you reall want better looking forms, I am certain this book will be of service.