Usability Testing

I got a strong reaction when I criticized Gmail's interface. A few people mentioned that you can activate hot keys so you can just press the r key to reply. Fair enough. I burrowed into the Settings and activated the hot key feature. It was a good idea, but nothing happens when I press r. You'll tell me this is a case of operator error, which obviously it is, and that is my point. Why is it so easy for the operator to make an error?

Someone mentioned that clicking the big unlabeled white box...