I guess if you're going for a Windows95 motif then this latest version is a regression.
I don't need particular motif, I can use almost any software. But the original Bitcoin client was so lightweight, minimalistic yet it contained all that was needed for operation. Original Bitcoin was few of the recent software that sticked to oldschool UI principles. Other examples I can give are TrueCrypt, Exact Audio Copy and WinRAR.
I'm hoping Gavin and Co. will just scrap the GUI entirely. THEN Bitcoin will really catch on.
The Bitcoin will really catch on if they rewrite it in Java and add Facebook support just like Skype did, so lamers can see each others bitcoin adresses and update they statuses when they send bitcoins. This really will get Bitcoin wide userbase.
Then fork the client... it's opensource.
Yes, it's opensource that means I can get the source code. But this does not mean that I can get the developmenet team or spare time to develop the code further.
AFAIK QT can be made to look like Windows, but I've never tried.
I don't hate Qt, I know software that uses Qt un Windows and it have good UI. The Vidalia is excellent example. The only thing that is native to Windows is native Windows API.
To ask them to support 3 different toolkits for Windows, Mac, and Linux is insanity. You probably don't care about the non-windows platforms, but many do, including the developers. There are several other clients as well, and if you look around a little you might find one that suits your needs.
I personally will dump support for any other OS than Windows, but Bitcoin is not that case. Bitcoin have more users who are using *nix platforms than average population, partly because they are overparanoid, partly because there is challenging mining rigs setups.
There are several other clients as well, and if you look around a little you might find one that suits your needs.
My perfect client looks just like original Satoshi client, are written in C++ and ASM, have native 64-bit support.
LOL.... seriously dude, screw the gui, run bitcoind. It's really not that hard.
For some special purposes I already do that. For my own desktop computer I prefer the GUI version.
I have 77 connection and the icon is one small red bar with tree yellow. That does not look positive to me.
This is not so big problem, the icon might be fixed. The problem is that there is no numerical values written in the statusbar at all, I need to aim my cursor and wait for a second to know how much connections I have, instead of just taking a quick look on Bitcoin client to see if the router is working properly and I'm contributing to network.