I suppose this is what Apple had in mind with their object-oriented, drag-and-drop philosophy for the Mac: a GUI which would allow people to pipe things visually with as much ease as possible, reaching a compromise between the UNIX philosophy and their notion of software design as making things "magic."
Right now, the most impressive achievements (IMO, and YMMV) in that arena come from the Plan 9 community, which is still a far cry from lay person's usage (partly because the Plan 9 community seems to pride itself—as a rule—for being a research OS community rather than the next blockbuster OS).
I like that plan 9 has stayed out of the chase for users, but I do think the multi-button mouse interaction model needs to be updated to leverage touch-sensitive surfaces and gesture commands.
Right now, the most impressive achievements (IMO, and YMMV) in that arena come from the Plan 9 community, which is still a far cry from lay person's usage (partly because the Plan 9 community seems to pride itself—as a rule—for being a research OS community rather than the next blockbuster OS).