I read here: “Smalltalk-80 started out using a graphics system called MVC (model view controller) and evolved to use a system from the Self language called Morphic” …
Well, I think, that this is historical wrong: Not Smalltalk-80 has been evolved into a system using Morphic, but Squeak has introduced this system.
In my opinion it is very good, that Smalltalk-80 has not introduced Morphic – because I think, that – though Morphic is one of the most interesting GUI experiments – it has produced one of the worst GUIs available on all Smalltalks today.
This is very sad, because Squeak and Pharo are getting better and better with each release – but the GUI is hopeless.
Schrievkrom 
This is very sad, because Squeak and Pharo are getting better and better with each release – but the GUI is hopeless.
Well that’s too true…
So propose a new one and help shaping the future 😉
Can you elaborate why you dislike Morphic? I am aware that it is loathed all over the place – but i never understood why.
One reason i liked Squeak and now like Pharo is because it has a GUI system of it’s own (and does not use a different native one on every platform) and i think Morphic is an especially nice system.
I – personally – have no problem with the MDI approach of Squeak/Pharo. I very often work within Virtual PC’s and I’m used to it. But I’m not so sure, if my employer or our users would accept this.
Perhaps a GUI is actually not needed any more with Squeak/Pharo, because the current developers have no problems using it – and most of the applications build with these systems will be developed for the web. Therefore this my be not really a problem at all.
I look at these things as a developer (therefore a user of these Smalltalk systems). I do not want to code GUI by code. I would like to have a GUI designing tool, menu bars, entries with keyboard shortcuts and all those already known widgets from Windows, Gnome, Qt ….
The (programming-) interface should be familiar with all that stuff known from other IDE’s. That’s – as far as I know – not the case. Therefore it might be only a missing-tool problem.
Perhaps – to remain platform independent – I would like to see Squeak/Pharo working together with Qt – just to go to mainstream again and use the enormous man power available in other mainstream projects. Not programming evertything in Smalltalk. Use C libraries for this and that.
Then it should look smart and consistent (using libraries like Qt have this feature).
GUI’s, where buttons are often the main user interaction widgets seem to be done either quickly or are an indication, that GUI programming is painful.
Just to make it clear: from a technical Smalltalk view: Squeak and Pharo are getting closer to VW and VA with each release (in terms of quality). Technically it can be expected (in terms of modern features in language and system: font handling, source code management, new language features, interactions with other languages, development tools etc) that they will reach (or even bypass) VA and VW in the future. As an example the progress in the virtual machine support over the last few years is great. Even perhaps 64bits may be possible some day.
But writing desktop applications with this tool ?