As a power user[1], I want you to consider every time I have to change a setting like a punch to the face. Your software should just work. It's a tool. I don't want to spend my time tweaking tools ... I'm not 15 anymore. I have better things to do with my life.
When was the last time you saw a "power user" configuring a hammer?
[1] 80% of waking hours behind a computer, most of the software I use, I use several hours daily
When was the last time you saw a "power user" configuring a hammer?
Never, because they're not configurable. My housemate does have five different hammers used for different things though - should we design software around that instead?
That's not entirely reasonable--what works for you is not what works for me and is probably not what works best for other sorts of tasks. Unless the tool in question is really narrow in scope, there is not single "best" solution to any particular problem.
Also, I never did understand the aversion (usually coupled with condescending comments like your "I'm not 15 any more", implying those who do configure tools to be immature) to tweaking tools. Setting my environment up is a one-time affair: I sit down for a weekend, get my computer working exactly the way I want, and I'm set.
The productivity benefits (and, at least for me, they are significant), are not one-time: they scale with however much work I do. The difference, of course, is that the benefits are less obvious than the time spent to get them. The only reason I'm well aware of them is that I've used both a nicely customized system and (for school) a horribly inflexible Mac OS system at the same time. Throughout the year, the difference between the two became more and more annoying until I was just gave up and did most of my work at home.
So really, the cost to customizing a system is O(1); the benefits are O(n). Unless the constants are very high (e.g. modifying the kernel for my own use would just take too long) or you don't plan on using a tool too much, optimizing it makes sense.
Coincidentally, while I've never seen anyone customizing a hammer (it's a rather simple tool which, chance are, you don't use that much or for too many different things), people do customize things like tool boxes for a very good reason: they're moderately complex and having everything organized the way you like makes you much more productive.
Additionally, I find another benefit to modifying my tools myself: it's much easier to remember my additions than even equivalent features that come standard with the system. I have added a whole bunch of useful commands to Emacs that save me quite a bit of work, and I did not have to spend any time remembering the new key sequences because I was the one who came up with them in the first place. Even if those features existed and were on by default, it would probably have been easier to set my own key commands for them.
In short: while it's fair to expect software to "just work", it is not fair to expect it to work optimally or even well for every case and every person. And customizing your own tools (which is one of the things I think it takes to be a "power user", rather than sheer quantity of use) really can make you more productive, even taking in the time needed to actually customize them.
I understand that. My first point was that expecting every tool to work perfectly, or even well, for every person and every use case is not really reasonable.
My second point was that setting up my tools (e.g. sitting down for a weekend...) only takes a constant amount of time but provides a linear benefit based on how much work I do. This makes it a net gain in most cases. This is also more of a response to his "I'm not 15 anymore" comment rather than his expectations.
The cordless drill is my standby example against the idea that people don't understand/like modes (when I feel cantankerous and want to argue against the "no modes" thinking). Bits are each a mode. CW or CCW is another mode choice. People seem just fine with thinking about modes when the current state is apparent and how to transition clear.
When was the last time you saw a "power user" configuring a hammer?
[1] 80% of waking hours behind a computer, most of the software I use, I use several hours daily