> In the software world, picking icons and taking screen
> shots are not critical path tasks compared to writing
> the save data to file routines.

One shop I'm acquainted with, the sequence is
 - Programmer designs an awesome GUI because he 
  felt like it
 - Customer passing through sees it and says
  "That's cool!  How soon can I have it?"
 - Management answers "Six months"
 - Programmers code furiously (no time for design!)
 - Seven months later, code review meeting is called
  for thousands of lines of code.  Six or more people
  say, "I haven't had time to look at it.  You
  tested it, right?"
 - Ship it.
 - Start debugging.

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?design.4.484158