example of a BAD DESIGN  

Regarding umbrellas, a signif...
Regarding umbrellas, a significant amount of items you purchase I believe are invariably designed to break, or at best simply suck, including the vast majority of procedures and medications Americans are prescribed and buy, which we are led easily to believe will improve or maintain one's health, explaining maybe in small part how and why all those rich fellas continue to make most all the bucks in the great big world of wealth. Bad design: medical care in the United States. There's really no reason to say why.

Bad fonts
I remember back in the 80's when I did 'desktop publishing' everyone used Adobe Lithos. A nice enough font but so overused that at Adobe we called it 'ubiquifont'.
http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_121.html

The Edsel. The Pontiac Aztek. The AMC Gremlin...
because they all flagrantly violate the most elementary tenants of asethetics. The HMMVV with or without armor, because its too wide, too heavy, carries too few persons, and gets too few miles to the gallon. The Space shuttle, because it blows up too often and does nothing very well. Pornography, because it isn't anywhere near as erotic as even the most inhibited person's erotic fantasies. Tea kettles that put the lid inside and under the handle so that its hard to work the faucette in under the handle and so you burn your hand if you lift the lid just after the water's been boiled. The cigarette because while it give great oral satisfaction and allows imaginative women to make all sorts of indirect, delightfully suggestive hand signals in flirtatious settings, alas, it kills millions of persons each year including my mother. Very bad design and if I ever get the chance I'll sue the greedy murderers who make them into the next millenium.
Most bicycle seats on high quality road bikes.
Etc.

All items designed for right handed persons
If you're left handed...

[tenets]
Love your list, dc. How about the Pacer -- "America's first WIDE small car. . ."
Joke (?) from Car & Driver during first (and only ?) year of the Aztec: "They're so ugly that Pontiac dealers are hiding them 'around back'."
Are you a lefty, skip ? You need Ned Flanders's 'Leftorium' (second floor of the Springfield Mall), I guess. I was using a power plane this afternoon (electric hand tool) and I noted that the secondary trigger, or safety button, was intended only for right--handed users. . . Not safe OR convenient !
SDR

.
On the other hand, the excellent little Bosch 3x21 belt sander has the button on the other side; as it doesn't work for me, maybe it was designed for the lefties. . .!

Luv the C&D quote about the Ugtek...
Regarding the Pacer, I have to come out of the closet furtively. I (gulp) think (gulp) the Pacer had the rudiments of a sound, forward looking design. Alas the potential virtue of the design got compromised by the death throw cost cutting of American Motors Corporation. I really believe if designer Dick Teague had gotten a chance to design the car from scratch, he would have made a narrower car that would have kept the Pacer from becoming the oversquare laughing stock it became. The basic silouette from the side seems strikingly right to me. And at one time I believe the car was conceived to have a rotary engine or a flat four nestled under that low hood. Of course the interior was ghastly and the car was dynamically awful. And it set too high on its wheels for the look Teague was after because of the inappropriate chassis, but if...if he could have cut the width by a third, rather than have to use the Gremlin/Ambassador platform, I really think the Pacer could have been a neat car instead of a joke. I've always wished some contemporary designer would go back to it and try to rework it into appropriate proportions. Apparently, however, I am a minority of one. 🙂
Now I will return to the closet.

the love that dare not speak it's name
dcwilson, you are not alone in that proverbial closet; for i too, share covetous (and possibly unnatural) urges for the Pacer.
A misunderstood masterpiece for an unworthy and ungrateful public.
Here's some eye-candy for all of you:
http://www.amcpacer.com/archives/archives.php

Having been a housewife for m...
Having been a housewife for many yrs, i go back to when cleaning the top of a range, stove was a chore that challenged all but maybe the merry maids. How often I cursed the male(of course 50 yrs ago it was a male) who designed those cruel nooks and crannies that get full of grease. Of course today we have the flatglass tops which are a blessing.
Unbeliveably, they still make them,still as nasty to clean, look at GE, Whirlpool, Sears next time youre at a HD...a curse on their house..better yet I would sentence them to clean one dirty, grease encrusted stove top!