I actually like the Preferences/Administration split.

For the most part, "preferences" describes stuff that is specific to my user (i.e. my personal preferences), whereas "administration" encompasses system-wide administrative tasks.

Obviously the split isn't perfect, as there are some things that fall into both categories, but in general I find that I look in the right place the first time, most of the time.

I'm not saying it makes loads of sense, as Mac OS X and Windows tend to clump "systems settings" in one place, but Preferences are those things that don't require sudo, Administration are those things that do.

At least that's my experience.

Yeah, that would be a really nice improvement. I never know where to look first to find what I want to do. I'm glad that I'm not the only person that is too stupid to understand the difference.

Yes, configuration in general is an area we want to tackle in much greater depth. For the 11.04 release we are looking to integrate Gnome Control Panel into the power menu...we are testing during the alpha/beta period right now!

See this link from the OMG!Ubuntu! folks (who are generally very good at covering latest and greatest features of Ubuntu...even during the devel period).

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/03/ubuntu-natty-adds-control...

Excellent!

Ditto on this. I feel you usually have to know where a setting is so you can know where a setting is. There might indeed be a criteria for the separation (ie, sudo vs non-sudo), but the fact that it is not readily apparent makes it (imo) a bad implementation.