Yes, it seems that although hardware acceleration was possible prior to Android 3, it wasn't as easy as it is now. It also requires a degree of care to be taken by the dev to do well.
Given that it hasn't been available in phones until now (that is, in ICS), it’s understandable why we've seen laggy UI.
I find the lagginess of the stock browser infuriating on my Nexus S. On graphics-heavy pages it can become almost unusable. Pages with mainly text are generally fine. But here's the thing, Opera Mobile on the same phone and on the same laggy pages is smooth as silk. It has remained snappy and responsive no matter how hard I've tried to make it choke.
Kudos to Opera. I would like to ask: has anyone else observed this? If not, could you give it a whirl and see how it compares?
Only downside is that it takes a while to load and seems to lose its state when switching away. Still, it's a much better experience than the stock WebKit browser.
So the question on my mind is, how does Opera do it? Is the WebKit browser simply failing to use GPU acceleration? Why? Clearly Android as a platform can do responsive, non-laggy UX because it's right there in Opera. And yet the WebKit browser lets us, and the many apps that exploit it, down.
Is it purely that GPU support hasn't been baked in yet because of lack of handset support? Or is it something more fundamentally problematic in Android?
One final tangential observation: OS X suffered from similar poor performance when it was first released. I clearly remember the tech press scoffing and ridiculing it in comparison to Windows XP and OS9. But it matured, helped by ever improving hardware, and grew into a great OS known for its style and snap. Is Google treading a similar path?
"except they don't use the word "intimidated", they say that they don't need html/css to get any more complicated, it's fine as it is."
I don't know who you've been observing, but in my experience as a web designer, with a bit over 15 years in the industry, is that web designers are constantly moaning about the limitations of HTML and CSS and hate the slow pace of change (or, to be more accurate, the slow pace of the demise of the IE browsers). They're also hungry to learn more and push the boundaries of current knowledge and practise. You only have to look at the coding section of Smashing Magazine, the most popular web design site online, to see that web designers are in no way the sort who are going to be intimidated or uninterested in Sass.
In fact, the debate regarding the evolution of CSS on, and my impression is that there is serious pressure on CSS to change and evolve, judging by the comments here:
"Programming is a left-brain endeavor, designing utilizes the right side of the brain."
Sorry, that's a myth. Both engage both sides of the brain. Most of what we do involves both sides of the brain. There are plenty of books around busting the myth that 'some people are left brain and some people are right brained'. Programming involves much of what is associated with 'right brain thinking': leaps of intuition, random thoughts, synthesis, looking at the bigger picture. While 'designing' (by which I take you to mean 'aesthetic design'?) involves much of what is associated with 'left brain thinking': analytical, objective, rational, logic.
What many folk do not realise is that 'design' is mostly something technical that can be learned. It's a set of rules, guidelines, processes and techniques that can be taught and practised. It's not some magical, right-brain, talent you're born with, it is something that is learned, practised and honed.
Sass is, in my experience, no harder to learn than HTML or CSS. Much easier, in fact if you already know CSS. It's nowhere near as complex as, say, Javascript or PHP, which most web designers seem to be able to handle to some degree. If a web designer (as in someone who specialises in HTML, CSS, graphic design, typography, IA) finds it too hard or complex, they either need to practice more, or find another career, because they're going to be redundant pretty soon as CSS and HTML get more complex with the transition to HTML5 and CSS3.
http://susy.oddbird.net/