Interesting reaction. I think it is possible to create beautiful interfaces in AIR (I'll leave it up to you to decide if we've accomplished it or not). I haven't heard many people complain about TweetDeck's desktop UI. Realistically AIR represents trade-offs. On the downside you have to install AIR with the software, but it also gives users the ability to run it on any OS from day one.
The development overhead of maintaining separate code for each OS is too great which is why there are essentially no task management tools that cross platforms. I'd like to think that the ability to run on any platform brings considerable value to our users. For those of us that use both Mac and PC everyday, this is something we could never do with Things or OmniFocus.
Give it a second look. It may be worth rethinking the value of AIR.
I will say that getting the edge cases for sync is difficult (We also integrate with email which has made it even more complex). Having spent the last several months fighting through it I can empathize with Cultured Code's perspective. But the user community has been vocal about this issue for years. OTA sync is a critical piece of a task management workflow, you've got to have it.
$10M - It covers the reasonable standard of living outlined by some of the other commenters plus enables you to purchase a nice (in some areas VERY nice) home with cash.
The development overhead of maintaining separate code for each OS is too great which is why there are essentially no task management tools that cross platforms. I'd like to think that the ability to run on any platform brings considerable value to our users. For those of us that use both Mac and PC everyday, this is something we could never do with Things or OmniFocus.
Give it a second look. It may be worth rethinking the value of AIR.