Or perhaps they never look in the menus because many Windows programs throw a hundred little icon buttons at them, which is overwhelming enough already?

answer> Macs have always been multiple monitor aware. I believe the GWorld coordinates have been part of the operating system since day 1, but exploitation of this feature has been practical only since the Mac Plus/SE, about 1988. (Yes the SE had a slot and the Plus had plug on doohickeys) You put the palettes on one monitor and the document on the main one. All-in-one plays into the Windows single “porthole” mentality. Yes, I know Wintels can have multiple monitors but the option was not widespread until the last few years and the options fewer.

quote> s it inherently better to limit menu bar buttons and menus to a few, or in the case of TextMate, zero, options than to put every potentially usable button up front and personal? Most user interface (UI) experts would say so.

Windows users …It seems that they want every option in plain view.

So, while the Mac has a widespread reputation of being easier to use, it’s Windows that actually does more to hand-hold the beginning user.

answer> Multiple buttons with inscrutable icons some of which could be interpreted in multiple ways is not the way to go. You touch on Word 6 for Mac which was derided at the time as a confusion master of this method. And just like the single pane, the icons took so much space that the view of the document was the equivalent of a 3×5 card. I always forget what buttons mean but I never fail to be able to read the English menus at the top of the screen. For most used ops keyboard shortcuts work best.

Many artists are aware of both your contentions and prefer the Mac way, multiple screens, palettes, one hand on the mouse/drawing instrument and the other on the keyboard for shortcuts/macros.