Interesting thread, I think I'll just be replicating things that were already said, but here goes anyways...

This is a great point... I think this might be where the worlds of Unix/Linux and Apple/Windows do not agree.

I would propose that 90%+ of computer users in the world do not want to see a text file, or would want to edit it even if it were there.

Example, I use Mac and Windows for graphical art and music, where you deal with huge data files, and typically there are no text files to be found (unless I am writing plug-ins). E.g., Maya, 3DSMax, Photoshop, Cakewalk... I do not see it as a limitations, and rather a strength... the only time I really want to see a text file is if I am writing software. The text files would be much to large to be meaningful without visual/audio feedback, and would be inefficient to even deal with in your day-to-day work flow.

It might be just my impression... I actually notice hard to use GUIs on Unix/Linux software more-so than other OS's. On my Linux Ubuntu box, I hardly ever use any GUIs, except for web-browsing.

I have a theory that many Linux software are wrappers/glue between other libraries and command-line programs much more so than on Windows/Apple (except now Apple has a lot of open-source projects, but i mean traditional Apple products for media arts). Perhaps interfaces are built bottom up on Linux (considering what tools can do the job to provide the functionality), rather than top-down in the GUI-only operating systems (first considering the high level use-cases and interfaces, which lead into requirements, which lead into design...).