Hi, Mike
When I say more modern I mean something like the Epson Layout or the new Canon PPL "look or style" for the new P2100 printer. Don't get me wrong the guts of Qimage is amazing, maybe more cleaner lines but I am not a programmer so I am not sure how hard it would be to change the UI
This is what I mean by people just wanting something that looks "different" or "like" something else. The Epson and Canon Layout programs are good examples: neither of them work well (or at all for that matter) for print nesting. The Epson software only allows one size per page. Neither software can do auto-placement to allow you to just pick common photo sizes on the fly and let the software arrange them. They both have sliders to choose the width and height of each print: inappropriate for photo printing software as you should be able to define and select common sizes. So I'm not in a hurry to copy look-and-feel from software that doesn't do the job properly or are missing key features which simplifies the interface not having those features.
I'll give one example: a common trend is to put a long list of scrolling settings on the right side. Lightroom started that years ago and people emulated it just to do it like Adobe (and without thinking about whether it'd make things easier or harder). Only problem is: it doesn't work well; not nearly as well as tabs. I could mix all the printer settings and print settings like size, borders, etc. in ONE long scrolling list of settings on the right side but I'm not going to do that because it is not appropriate for printing software and would slow you down as you continually scroll up/down hunting for features. Doing it like Lightroom (one long scrolling list of sliders on the right) simply comes from inexperience: not knowing how to design a purpose-built UI that really simplifies the photo printing workflow.
All of this is to say: I'm open to ideas but they have to be concrete ideas and they can't be changes just for the sake of trying to make Qimage look like other (inferior) software.
Mike