I get this exact same feeling, a thousand fold when I'm in a supermarket. To think of the amount of effort it has taken to design, manufacture, package, market and transport all those products (edible or not) is a little overwhelming.

Not only relevant, but sure feels like the inspiration for the GP comment.

Having recently "invented" and manufactured a physical product, I can attest to how much time and effort is put into seemingly inconsequential product features. Coming from tech/services like many of you I had no idea how much time I'd spend on minor features that happened to be critical to bringing the product to market.

That being said, when coding software or accomplishing a purely "tech" task, most of my time is usually spent on the "minor details" so I guess it isn't all that much different.

Yep, and many times we end up with lousy products despite all this work. Case in point in the xkcd comic: the switch on the lamp cord. What an utterly idiotic idea; it's only done because it's cheaper, not because it's better for the user. In fact, I'd assert that lamps, in general, have some of the very worst product design for any class of modern product. They haven't improved substantially in many decades. We have amazing LED lighting now (as seen on the headlights of new cars, both the DRL systems and also on some cars which use LEDs for the main headlights), but our table/floor lamps are still unchanged from the 1950s, designed around the ancient Edison bulb, with horrible user interfaces (switch on cord where it's hard to reach, or switch next to bulb where you have to stick your arm up inside the lampshade and try to find it in the dark).