OK, forgive me this one small rant... <rant>
Most mods come with some sort of GUI configuration screen. I waded through all the XML and stuff before I learned what Ace actually was, and it took some effort, but was not exceptionally grueling, once I'd gone through
Fara's Frames tutorial. Some go to the extreme, like Norganna's addons (Gatherer, Auctioneer etc.) to make their own GUI config library. Some just use Ace itself with Waterfall, or DewDrop, or Rock, or whatever, and it works just fine. Some just let the Ace libraries handle slash commands. All of these are great ways to handle configuration needs for your mod!
Until recently, I thought it was a little annoying when some mods could really use a good intuitive GUI to help you navigate all the different modules and functions of an addon, but all they have are slash commands. At least they're still configurable. I really approve of little mods (e.g.,
LevelSnap) using nothing but slash commands though, because you'll only ever need to set those options once.
So what's up with all the mods that have come out since the beta key giveaway announcement that do one small thing (and several of them do it well) that HAVE NO CONFIGURATION INTERFACE? I can't believe how many of the new addon descriptions I've seen that say "If this value doesn't suit you, just go into the Lua file and..."
Taking for granted that I'm perfectly comfortable doing that, I still have 283 folders in my Addons directory (including mods and libraries). Do you know how much time making one small change and /rl takes me? Most people, on the other hand, will just stop reading as soon as they see the word Lua.
Seriously, I think it's great how many people have done their very best to learn an obviously foreign and intimidating language like Lua, XML, and the WoW API just for an early peek into WotLK. I bet some of them would quite seriously rather pay $100 than make a mod for it. But assuming you've had to wade through Ace and WoWWiki tutorials, and the WoW Programming books, ... did you miss the parts teaching you how to implement a slash command? Were they too hard? Are we that lazy?
If you're curious, the one that finally tipped the scales for me was
Entitled.
</rant> Thank you, I feel much better now.