Ah, you young whipper-snappers don't know how good you had it with xorg.conf. I remember hand-editing ModeLines in XFree86.conf... And that was an improvement over the old days, where you had to edit the Xserver source code!...
I never had to edit the source, but I do clearly remember ModeLines. I also remember the devout wishes that this next test please not not not fry my monitor...
I vaguely remember hearing/reading a quote from the late Steve Jobs, way back when NeXT was a new company, where he referred to the X Window system as "incredibly ornate and baroque". I think he gave it way too much credit. ;P
Ah, then you'll enjoy the UNIX Haters Handbook (freely available since 2003 at http://www.simson.net/ref/ugh.pdf).
I agree that not all of X is a... complete success. Having used Display Postscript on two different systems, I'm not sure it was any better than X. Ironically, SunWindows 3 was probably better than either from a design standpoint. Just please don't make me remember DECWindows.
-Adam