Now that M&B is apparently nigh finished and 960 Actually Works (tm), the almost unchanged UI is pretty garish and clumsy. The UI is important in many ways, several not obvious to people who're used to a games quirks - it reduces learning curve, makes the game easier to play, and reduces screen clutter while making information more obvious.
The biggest issue for new players UI wise - the one they hit first - is selecting things on the main map. It's pixel-senstive, and due to the inflexible camera choosing one object out of many is fiddly in the extreme, and actually entering a town is similarly fiddly. A toggle to use icons instead of models, appropriately displayed to not overlap for ease of clicking, would solve this by giving larger, more informative click-areas- in it's most primitive form, the existing text-boxes could be used. This is an important issue because people who've been playing since 751 like me are used to it, but new players will expect more, and like all overlays never has to be used by people who are used to the current method.
Main map announcements are nearly meaningless to new players. Names should at least be colour-coded so players aren't expected to immediately know who owns every single town in the game, but ideally there would be a history that was hyperlinked. Iconography could make the messages smaller, particularly the 'x gets richer/poorer' and 'x is under siege' messages.
In combat, more feedback could be displayed in a smaller area. The giant-text updates could be displayed by a pair of icons, using 'colour-icon-stars' to indicate ownership, type and tier, or at least reduced and colour-coded. Even on my 1680x1050 monitor, the combat feedback messages take up nearly a third of the screen.
The tactical commands are much more useful now, since the formation AI is improved, and if a few icons were displayed in the bottom right to remind new players who they're talking to and what order each number did, the learning curve on the orders system would be reduced. Common iconography between the orders area and the combat feedback area would make it easier for new players to manage battles without having to constantly use the backspace screen.
When considering the UI, it's meaningless to look at it from the perspective of someone who already knows how to play the game and is used to it's foibles and clumsiness. Particularly if M&B is to go to retail release, the flaky UI will very much form an obstacle to new players, and that's bad for everyone. It's very common for otherwise interesting and worthwhile games to present as quite clumsy and primitive due to a UI that has been left behind by development.
