However the GUI can be beneficial in some ways -
*snip*
3. Even though IOTA is IOT centric, i am not convinced (with my admittedly tiny understanding of the tech) that there will be no benefits of a zero-fee distributed ledger system for err.. human nodes shall we say. Of course, the architecture is designed with machines in mind (not all nodes seeing same tangle state at a given time, non-reusable addresses, non-enforceable tip selection algorithms, etc. etc.)
I mean we are talking about bitcoin-like properties without fees and scalability issues.
That in itself, is big enough to make people wonder.
*snip
This is a VERY valid point and why I do hope that a good GUI wallet shows up. In the short term, a simplistic GUI is good so that the "power user" types who've invested can easily test the software. In the longer term, there is certainly no good reason why a solid GUI can't be created. 0-fees and (hopefully) fast confirmation times is, in my limited opinion, some of the most basic of advancements that I've been hoping for since I first read about bitcoin in early 2009.
Many of the advancements that have taken place have centered around feature-creep, rather than fixing some of the most basic issues that could have the most profound (all though subtle) impact on crypto-currency adoption.
With that said, though. We do not need to stay focused on the GUI. It is just a small tool in a MUCH bigger project. As such, I think it need to be a mid-priority requirement that could either come later or, better, members of the community could make their own special GUIs which could very easily be 100% HTML+Javascript.