Honestly I like ribbons quite a lot as a design framework and hell, even padding can improve the UX, it's just a shame that neither of these elements have been used well in a decade.
Agreed. I'm sure if I was heads down in Excel for years beforehand it would be a significant downgrade, but as a casual user, making better use of some of the more advanced features became so, SO much easier with the Ribbon.
In a world that loves to tout "efficiency" sprawling GUIs and mouse-click-everything has drastically reduced efficiency when a keyboard + shortcuts + macros are far more efficient.
The further we stray from the CLI the further we stray from God. CLI-nliness is next to Godliness.
I'd like to use good GUI programs designed for using with a keyboard, but it seems touch UI is the main theme for bigger developers these days, and keyboard is an afterthought at best