One of the consequences of this is a deplorable lack of quality of the web interfaces. I've seen everything from help buttons that didn't react at all, to using an iframe to load documents from the company's webpage, to all sorts of illogical inconsistencies across the interface.
One of my pet peeves has always been IP configuration. During the initial configuration of the equipment, you've invariably got to change the IP address. You're doing this with a web based tool. You know that, once the IP address changes, you're not going to be able to get to the device on the old IP. Hyperlinks were invented in 1965. Why, in 200X, do so many manufacturers just make a link that says "Continue" and points them to the config root on the same IP? Doesn't that seem counter-productive?
Finally, I've encountered someone who said, "You know, maybe we could link to the IP address that this thing was changed to...". My new 3com Baseline 48port switch
has this feature. I'm irrationally impressed by this small detail. Like the title says, it's the little things sometimes...
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I've noticed the same things. Cisco's entry level Catalyst Express switches have a setup button which will flash a port, which you then plug into, and will serve up an ip to you. You open your browser and you get the setup tool. The nice thing about it is that you can configure the entire switch, including the management vlan and it still won't change how you're interacting with the switch until you unplug from the switch. The only problem is you have to go back and configure the single switchport that you were hooked into after the fact and have to use the ip of the switch in the management vlan to fix it.
Even still, it's a bit clunky to navigate around. I actually don't mind using the CLI with that gear. Sometimes it can be quicker, especially when you're using the interface range command on a 48 port access level switch.
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