It’s been a great treat in recent years to see a broader acceptance of emotional design, an understanding of the role emotion plays in buying and use, and a focus on designing for “delight”. I really buy into the idea that human beings are hopelessly irrational and emotional users and that’s ok; we just need to design for it! Plus it's fun!
But what’s been similarly concerning (and a tad unexpected) is a trend to overweight certain emotional design choices at the cost of basic functional utility. Gaming and pure entertainment products aside, people use products to get jobs done; that’s just what good products do. It's why craigslist is still craigslist despite a particularly difficult to use design.
Jared Spool said, creating apps to be usable is the equivalent of saying food should be edible. And he’s right, apps and product need to do more than just get a job done...but they still need to get the job done above all else.
If I had to choose between the tacos and the mail...I’d have to choose the mail.