[Swordmaker]

Hmmm, but with this sort of WYSIWYG “usability” comes opacity, which means that the user has no real idea what’s going on under the hood, and thus is quite easy to lead by the nose. MS uses opacity, too, but not nearly so much as Apple does. Most *nix-based systems do not, of course, have the same sort of opacity problems.

I am not certain what you are getting at here. The Mac gave you controls of almost every aspect of the typographical process... which is what made it easy to do things that were very difficult to accomplish on other platforms. Secondly, Mac OS X, IS UNIX™, one of the four certified to claim that. . . so in one breath you claim it's opacity, and the next you deny it?

[Oceander]

Gee, did I specify just type-editing? No, I did not. Anything where “it just works” but “I’ll be d**ned if I know how it did that” fits under the general rubric of WYSIWYG. Second, you’re right, I over-specified OS types - my bad - Apple’s OS no longer qualifies as a transparent, or even translucent, OS. So, let’s try a narrower class: *nix - (Apple OSes).