I sometimes encounter interfaces that are so horrible (for example ... ribbon...)
I don't like Ribbon as much as anyone using AutoCAD or Max here, but, I have to say something. Microsoft put a TON of effort into Ribbon and actually made it work pretty damn well in Office, which
was the sole point of Ribbon.
Ribbon is an Office designed UI that works in Office, but companies like Autodesk saw how flashy, sexy, hip and in this looks so they adapted it, mindlessly, in their applications, such as AutoCAD and Max, for no benefit to the users. I can do stuff that Ribbon provides much faster and with much less effort without the Ribbon than with it. The only real reason Ribbon is in Max is because it looks cool on the promo images and demo videos.
That being said, if Ribbon worked for the VFB well (which it wouldn't as it was primarily designed to get rid of super-deep nested/cascaded sub-menus that plagued Office), I'd be all for it.
The problem here I see is that this feature should not be democratically decided :)
Keymaster, or whoever responsible for the VFB, should gather as much data and input information from the actual users as they could and then and ONLY THEN should they hire a professional UX/UI designer that'd come up with a universal, fast and sleek GUI that'd be productive and useful.
I know myself what a UI/UX designer can bring to the table, when supplied with enough information and how important that is to the product and the end users in the end.
Again, Microsoft's thorough GUI research lead them to
develop and design Ribbon for Office, which
DOES WORK.
Autodesk's greed led them to
implement Ribbon in Max, which
DOES NOT WORK.