Graphic design makes people happy - bah humbug

Graphic design in software is getting a lot better and making people (like me) smile more.
I'm an outsider to graphic design, but I think what's happened is that design for screen has continued to mature. At one time web design consisted of chopping design for print up into chunks and sticking it in an HTML table. We also had the TV inspired age where every corporate web site had to be introduced by a clunky animation. Perhaps we are now mature enough to see that design features are there to enhance the information rather than distract from it. It's about clear text and simple buttons. It's about being pixel-perfect rather than bold and flashy. It's back to good old fashioned typography. Designers realise again that the empty space around glyphs is as important as the glyphs themselves.
My favourite trick is how gmail seems text-based, and yet if you look closely you find loads of pixel-perfect rounded corners and tiny clever graphics. Like all the best design you don't notice it's there.
As a Java developer, I'm inclined not to care about pixel-perfect rendering of web pages. I tend to feel that the content, the domain model, the integrity of the data, even the usability of the system are more important. The rendering is just a detail, and besides, it's probably somebody else's problem.
I think we should worry about these issues much more. I think that the detail of your GUI has a subtle but significant effect on the user. For example, it makes me smile. I would like to think about these issues as software quality issues, in the same way that we think about bugs. How about raising a bug when one word hasn't been anti-aliased properly, or one pixel is the wrong shade of blue? Generally these things aren't a priority in the business-software world, but it would be nice if they were.
And maybe one day I might sort out my blog template.