re: GUI
A while back I was also enamoured of wallpaper and had a set of a few dozen favourite images. I wrote a batch file to rotate the files through a sequence, with a new wallpaper each bootup.
In the end, I grew out of it, but it was fun while it lasted.
I'm sure there's a lot that can be done in this field, but these days I prefer my interface to be stable so that I can find the right button in the dark!