Yep--the platform specific gui is not a high priority for LW, since they develop for many platforms and operating systems.

So, the gui is pretty general across all platforms, though a few of the developers work pretty hard at making it work better.

Currently the priority is on the "snappy" part, which depends on the Java version that Apple supplies. With the change to Tiger, Apple has also released an updated Java, but Apple is not yet recommending that the developers make it the default yet.

Actually, I've become so used to the gui that I forget about the problems you mentioned. It will be a while yet before all the Java sluggishness on OS X is resolved, but there is progress.

Watch for an upcoming beta release: there are many many improvements (and I'm sure a few bugs to work out ) to the underlying code. While you probably won't "see" a major difference in the display, memory and CPU requirements should be considerably less, even on Panther.

I sure hope Apple updates Java for Panther too, not just Tiger.