The biggest problem (IMO) I see people do is they try to do too much or be too "cute". They try to cram every last pixel with something to make it visually "impressive". Usually this just adds too much visual noise and overwhelms the interface.
I am not a designer by any means but I do agree with you there. I used another front end but..it dragged the system with everything they crammed into it. (the front end should not take more power to run than the emulator itself!) I found another that was "perfect". It was simple that is all I wanted just something to let the user know where they were. I used emuchrist’s themes because it let me have a "running theme" it made the front end "flow" but yet you knew where you were. Thus it looked "clean and professional" even though it was "plain".
The reason "simple" works (and you need it simple)..is because you don't know who is going to use your cab or machine and with to much going on you can overwhelm them. Besides they just want to play it anyway..once the "cool factor" wears off they don't care how it looks...just that it works.
Yeah gaming on a PC is better because it's bigger and badder because you can have the best graphics blah blah...but you'll notice that console market is "thriving". Why? Because I can just "put my game in and play". It' s simple.
