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Use-ability (an open letter to interface designers)

Hello gang.

I've been crazy busy lately and have been lurking, but not much else.
Including playing music.  Things have finally calmed down for me, and I
decided to kick off my return to looping with a good old fashion sugar
cube and a room full of guitars, synths computers and my trusty JamMan.

I called this event Burning Mark, and it was a great success.

However, there were a few snags.  Most based on user interface issues.
First, my bass (a steinberger) was giving me no output.  Could I have
been so stupid as to not make sure the preamp battery was good?  Yes I
could.  Damn, a dead battery.  And in my state I had to remove 6 tiny
screws to get to that little nine volt.  What the hell?   Who the hell
designed that little feature? (btw: I LOVE the bass other than that)
Even in my total right mind if I were at a gig and the bass died, this
would have been far more than reasonable for a timely return to the
performance.

Later, my Alesis S4 plus no longer seemed to be receiving MIDI commands
from my MIDI guitar.  What the hell?  It was working fine a moment...
Oh.  That's it.  They put the MIDI channel change button right next to
the program change button.  Same size and look for each button.  D'oh!

So where am I going with this?  Here:  PLEASE DESIGN YOUR GEAR WITH ONE
THING IN MIND: THE USER WILL MOST LIKELY BE USING YOUR PRODUCT UNDER THE
INFLUENCE OF DRUGS OR HEAVY STRESS AND A CONFUSING Environment.

Now, I'm not recommending LSD for my patients who chew gum, but it does
give a good benchmark for usability.  I've been dealing with electronic
music since the late 70s and worked in a music shop for a lot of those
years.  Even learned myself how to program a DX7.  How about that?  I'm
pretty damn good at figuring out how to use gear without a manual (as
many used pieces come into a music store), so if it's hard for me, how
must it be for a not to tech savvy musician?  Here me KORG and Roland!
I've had just about enough out of you!  Same hold true for software.  I
thought that Cubase was so cool at first, but I've switched back to
Metro, because it isn't a slave to the "virtual studio" interface and is
more useable because of this.  Let's stop adding useless features like a
billion presets, and let's just make things easier to use.

OK, I'm done now.  Bye bye.

Marklar