is delight the only focus?

[g00n]

Really, I think the abberation is the slew of programs that adhere to the (usually drab) defaults ... sit down to eat our dinners at gray card tables ...

I dont care what the application is, design requires proportionate attention to competing and complementary criteria. For instance if usability is ignored at expense of performance, users are not going to succeed. Consider that in a study done by Nielsen, users failed in achieving successful outcomes for 35% of web sites out of 139 web sites. Trade-offs are required.

Firmess, commodity and delight, (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, 90-20 BC) is an often repeated phrase in design literature. Applied to software, the correct balence between this trinity of ideals is critical.

For in-house built applications as the user suggests, the workmanship required for extra polish (delight) is not warrented ... at least until version 3 - 4 when all the other issues (firmness, comodity) have been addressed.