What I always loved is when software developers used random icons in order to fill toolbar icons’ space.The latest and one of the obvious samples of such behavior is TranslateIt!: OS X dictionary tool.Here’s a fragment of their GUI in Russian:
Try to guess mnemonics of their buttons (L2R):
- Left/right – that’s obvious
- Purse? Books? Journal? Nope… Dictionaries.
- Morse code? Justify? Huh. Just notes.
- System busy? Wait? Time left? History… how cute!
- I know this! it’s RSS! No? WTF? It’s just “say”…
Now, when we live in the world of Google, Iconfinder, Flickr and dozens of icon and image finding services we still have to deal with developers being unable to spend 2 minutes (sic!) per icon just to find a good metaphor.
I’m voting by my own dictionary purse by not buying semi-usable applications and recommend you doing the same.
P.S.: nope, that’s not the only programs’ UI fault, but beating the falling one isn’t fair, right? 
Елки, плохая работа