I am finding that as the system becomes bogged down in tasks, although I can "alt+tab", I cannot for some reason invoke the Start Menu, or the task bar and as robust as the task switching mechanisim is, I'd like to see greater functionality in this regard. Thank you

If you open task manager, right click on "explorer" and set the "priority" to high, Explorer will take CPU cycles first and allow you to maneuver quickly through things like the start menu. The downside is that you will take CPU cylces from running processes and this can cause timeouts for things like SQL... So, I would only use this if you have to, or if the applications in the back are a low priority.

Couldn't the system be redesigned to support what I am asking?

It could, but I think that with the release of power shell and the "core" install of 2008, the movement is to reduce the GUI interraction and have the applications running in the background... It is sort of ironic that after working out such great desktop interraction, we are moving back to the interface that we were using in DOS

It would seem rather ironic as you say, however besides the new "force shutdown" screen which is still a GUI, I cannot understand why it is so difficult to maximise a "DOS" screen in the first place.

Are we agreed?