Interesting stuff.

A few comments:

1) XP already has the feature of being able to put exactly what you want in the start menu and it is as easy and drag and drop.

2) what people probably don't like about commonly used programs popping-up automatically is that they want to hide what they've been doing. Examples: solitaire showing-up as #1 at work or some adult app showing-up on home computer shared with kids.

So, I think that this is actually a matter of privacy more than efficiency.

One important thing to realize about talking to users about what they want is that they will lie if they think they'll be embarassed somehow in most cases. Seems obvious on the one hand, but if you are used to asking the customers what they want and acting on it, it can be hard to see this sometimes.

There are areas of want that won't be asked for, and they usually involve some element of shame.