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Notes -
I completely agree, the general theorem is "build a system that any idiot can use, and only idiots will want to use it."
Relatedly, I believe that command line interfaces are often superior to GUIs in practice because 'users willing to use a CLI' already selects for 'users willing to ignore a certain level of detail provided by the system, unless they have a good reason to care about it'. This allows the devs to provide an adequate level of detail. fsck can confidently mention inodes trusting that users who do not know about them do not will not halt and catch fire upon encountering an unknown term.
For android, the thing which makes the use bearable to me is to lie to the device and claim that I am an android developer. Voila, shell access via adb, no-hassle file transfer from the command line, etc pp. Together with picking a phone whose manufacturer supports OEM unlocks and a custom FW with root access, it almost feels like I actually own my device.
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