>I can see 'wanting' eye candy like Marilyn Monroe or a shiny new Corvette, but neither would be very appealing at all if they came with a semi-transparent property that only hid what they really are.
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>Can you think of any way that areo glass HELPS users?

After switching to BlackBoxLean for my desktop and toolbars (see thread #1159362 for full history), I've discovered that even the whole idea of icons is superfluous. All the stuff that I need frequently fits into three tiny, text-only toolbars that occupy about 100x450 pixels on the top right edge of my desktop (and even that's hidden most of the time, save for the title bar of the uppermost toolbar). I don't have to minimize all apps to find an icon.

What's the purpose of an OS? To run software. Taking the verb in both perfect and imperfect meanings - it has to launch an application, and it has to keep it running, and to serve it while it runs. And that's it.

I see no advantage of a fancy desktop - as soon as you start any app, you'll hide the desktop. If you start more of them, you'll hide even more of the desktop.

The advantage may be in it looking nice when not in use. Hang a picture on the wall, it won't vanish when your screen saver kicks in.