Agreed. I was really hoping that with 2.0, there would be at least some attempt at refining the interface.

Compare the interface to Reaper (The Cockos team has three main contributors, right?), Cubase or Vegas, or if you want to get shiny, Propellerheads or Line6.

A fresh coat of paint goes a long way.

Sorry to be snarky; but, compare $0 (Audacity) to $225 (reaper), $500 (cubase), $600 (vegas), $130 (Propellerheads).

Having bought and upgraded Vegas & Cubase, and evaluated Reaper (which is $0 for cripple-free evaluation & $60 for a non-commercial license) I am fully aware of the cost. Winamp (made by one of the guys behind Reaper) was free, even before AOL bought Nullsoft, and still managed to look better than every other MP3 player out there.

There are people who have offered their services, presumably free of charge. I think Audacity would be a lot more inviting if more effort was put into the look and usability of the interface. Need money? Come up with a plan and a Kickstarter page.

I'm not saying it should be a DAW. I'm just saying it should look like something that was released in 2012, rather than something that was released in 1998.

Audacity doesn't attempt to be a fully-featured DAW. It does what it does, and it does it nicely. Not sure you can compare it to the others with a straight face. If you're recording a podcast, I'm sure it's fine.

Reaper's license only costs $225 for full commercial use exceeding $20,000 in revenue. Otherwise it's $65 for the exact same software. Not a bad deal at all.

149 for fl studio seems low in comparison but is a worthwhile alternative

It looks better than this at least: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4GWheE4Gkw

i tried offering my help, mostly for web and icon work, but the developers never responded. i'm sure i'm not the first.

Sometimes it's hard to accept an offer for help even if you know you need it because you are thinking of the amount of work required to accept that help (ie re-skinning). I tend to get bogged down and overloaded myself like that sometimes to my own detriment.

Maybe if you keep trying, or even look at the code and see if you can make a patch file with a few new buttons - that would result in some progress. It would be great because audacity could use some UI love.