If the upgrades still cost $129, I'd agree with you. But since Snow Leopard, each update has been less than $30. I personally feel like I'm getting what I pay for. Not to mention the "under the hood" improvements.
I'm skeptical about any UI changes - especially anything drastic. I would love to see skeumorphism get taken out behind the barn and shot. Aside from that, I like the direction of the UI over the past few releases. Remember pinstripes? Brushed metal? Yeah...
I like the UI as is. But out of curiosity, what specifically would you change? (Other than a re-skinning)...
Agree. I wish they would go back to beta releases requiring a full reinstall during the Serlet 10.4-6 days. It may have been more time consuming, but it allowed for better testing compared to the 4 App Store incremental DP's. We used to get a full beta DMG every other week, in most cases for over a year.
I remember 10.5 beta's had ZSF+ hinted at, and I loved the "Answering Machine" feature in iChat in Leopard beta's. You left a video away message and friend could leave one for you. That would be great in "Messages", especially for the deaf.
New Finder As HDD volumes are larger and cheaper (and NAS are becoming commonplace in consumer homes), HFS+ is long in the tooth. Shame as ZFS+ is great for large volumes ("Time Machine" anyone?). Licensing issues, blah.
OpenGL Core 3.x support is bad enough, 4.0 is atrocious
Skeuomorphism Get rid of it in OS X. I use "Mountain Lion Tweaks" to bring back 10.6 GUI for Contacts and Calendar, without it I wouldn't use them.
Messages buggy, keeps launching deleted messages on my Mac Pro and Macbook Air
Mail Overhaul; streamline it and allow for more customizations of rules and mailboxes
iLife 11 iPhoto needs an overhaul. Also bring back the ability to restore deleted individual pictures, events, albums through "Time Machine" that ver. 9 removed. No need to restore the whole library if pics are accidentally emptied from its trash. Why did Apple remove this?
Multiple Display Support As I use 2 monitors, this is a major contention for me. Fullscreen apps should not "linen" secondary displays. Fullscreen allows for full use of a displays desktop real estate, but should not negate secondary displays. Add the ability for fullscreen on two or more displays.
"Mission Control" Why mess with 10.5/6 Spaces and Exposé?
Craig Federigh's baby is a hot mess. 10.8 brought back ungrouping in Exposé, yet iOS Spaces is inefficient for a desktop system (swiping through 10-16 desktops? C'mon! I assign apps for work to various desktops that was easy to access with 10.5/6 Grid Spaces. Thank god for
TotalSpaces for "3D" grid Spaces in 10.7/8.
Most of all, focus on stability. I've never used such an unstable OS X release since 10.7 (10.8 has been better). While better than other OS's, still sub-par for Apple.