Spacing in the GUI seems to be a power user vs beginner tradeoff.
Beginners like big UI's with a few large buttons with nice big icons clearly illustrating what they do.
Experts like to fit as much functionality in as possible, so want keyboard shortcuts and millions of buttons.
The logical thing seems to be some slider to adjust 'UI density' that defaults to beginner mode, but can be slid on a per-app basis. How hard can it be?
If you look at the pictures from the link, the Windows 9 screenshot has a much better use of space. The two screenshots have almost exactly the same functionality, but much worse use of space.
So while I agree with your comments, I still hate the one on the right because it makes my eyes jump around all over.
The first, by contrast, has a much smoother eye flow over the controls. This is something most people don't understand when doing UI design, and is somewhat independent from the amount of stuff on the screen.
Making a UI that is usable at multiple density levels, especially if it has to adapt to different screen sizes and allow for other customization, seems like a big jump up in complexity. It might be worth it, but I'm not surprised few apps do it.
Beginners like big UI's with a few large buttons with nice big icons clearly illustrating what they do.
Experts like to fit as much functionality in as possible, so want keyboard shortcuts and millions of buttons.
The logical thing seems to be some slider to adjust 'UI density' that defaults to beginner mode, but can be slid on a per-app basis. How hard can it be?