Many a time I have spent over a minute decoding a Gnome GUI for incredibly simple applications. Is that a clickable icon? Why is that icon/menu option greyed out? Toggles, icons, buttons, toolbars thrown together with a rare tooltip. I fully agree they border on parodical.
And yet I still use the gnome tools frequently, because they are useful. So in a way I do feel bad for complaining because I am certainly not stepping up to the plate to improve these tools.