>>Sure, the response time may be not that critical for the most of software applications, but one can easily see where the requests for flashing signs come from.
>>
>>They come from the most important biological reflex, and when somebody tells me that millions of dollars were spent to prove that the fundamental orientation reflex is wrong - I can only laugh.
>
>I actually think the "millions of dollars in research" applies to general study of users' behavior with previous versions of Windows. Flashing text must have been high on the list of annoying things - just because it was overused in days of character mode, when there were few graphical effects available. Flashing text for no good reason is close to crying "wolf" - do it few times and you get everybody rubbed the wrong way, aka pis*ed off.
>
>And I'm not amazed that Microsoft would spend millions investigating what annoys the users :).

And now they annoyed those who *really* needs the flashing signs but cannot do it without shaman's dances with buben... :)