Examples are ‘my documents’ instead of real paths or (as seen in a firewall software) ‘add a game’ instead of a dialog which allows to make settings for a certain port.

This is very insightful.
Unfortunately, if you look carefully, you will see that most FOSS apps are “clones” and “ripoffs” of Windows and Mac apps. There are really not many new ideas in FOSS. For FOSS programmers, it seems to be easier to steal ideas than to generate them, and it is more in line with their usual practices.
Well that is what happens when you pay coders like they were burger flippers, it seems.

We all know what you are doing, Charlie.

Lazy users? Why are there lazy users? Because they can!
Saying that users are lazy or not is practically irrelevant to us if we want to have users adopt Ubuntu. Now we are in a world where users have many choices and the role of technology has become one of empowerment. The philosophy of forcing users to mold into specific behaviours and ways of thinking to use technology is long gone. It certainly predates internet! So if we want Ubuntu to be embraced by a large number of people, we need to respond to users’ needs. It’s a challenge in creativity and inventiveness that requires that we not be lazy!
As for jargon, maybe for you there is none, for first time Ubuntu users, jargon is real and is an impediment to their use and enjoyment.

Even on Meerkat 10.01, it is not fool proof! I advised a user who had not installed Ubuntu previously to first back up their docs to a separate HDD first BEFORE installing onto the Ubuntu target disk. This is from my own past experiences of losing data.

I forgot to remind them to unplug the backup HDD and Murphy’s law dictates that they somehow ended up installing Ubuntu onto the external HDD losing ALL backed up documents.

From my own experience, the simple install process is still not clear! I have three HDD’s and the guided dialogue did not mention which disk the OS was going to be installed to. I had to select Advanced options to do find out what the installer was planning to do.

So, the end result is that a user has been put off from using Ubuntu for life. The installer needs to be tested thoroughly.

As for the file compatibility, a couple things that irk me:

1) on GIMP for example, even if you choose to save as a different file type, you still have to know and type in the extension, because the selection of a different type seemingly does nothing.
2) I find Open Office to be a slow sloth and I want to use Gnumeric and Abiword. So I install them, only to find out the formats are incompatible and I can’t open my ODF files. With these ‘competing’ file formats they are weakening the strength of open document formats, which must compete with MS Office.

As for command line apps that get installed by mistake and then lost, adding one field in the descriptions for whether or not a program has a gui would be a good thing…

also having a Terminal Commands subcategory under Applications would be grand too. Selecting a new command would open up Terminator with two panes, one would have the man page pre-loaded, and the other would be cursor ready for input. Alternately, it could just start gnome-terminal and automatically enter the command with the –help option (which thankfully is nearly universal).

I’m surprised someone has not invented a gui-driven CLI. (select desired command, dropdown boxes for modifiers and switches, browse boxes for locations, etc.) It’d be like training wheels.