I've been making sly comments but I should probably just say what I feel, even if it sounds ridiculous.
I have a couple of pet peeves, one of them is the glorification of hand tools and the other is this kind of overly ornate and indulgent stuff. In woodworking hand tools aren't particularly hard to use, only time consuming, but there's alot of people out there that get a bit too excited about them and assume people that use them are better woodworkers. With this desk I don't feel the mechanisms are particularly clever or revolutionary, it might've taken the guy a few months to complete it but it wouldn't have been too taxing, and the styling is pretty ugly even for the era. It's as if the clutter of details, awkward features, and the assumed time wasted on them makes people think it must be good.
That in itself isn't something that bothers me too much though, I don't blow a gasket every time I watch an antiques show. But really i'm more disappointed since I figured people on this forum would feel the same way I do about this kind of stuff, or at least appreciate that the desk isn't some marvel of ingenuity craftsmanship.