I am working with morphir from drupal.org (who has had usability patches installed into Drupal core) to create wireframes for a new easier to use admin theme for Drupal.
If we create it in time, it could be used in Drupal 6.x (currently RC2) as the default theme. The theme that gave us the inspiration is able to work in Drupal 6: http://drupal.org/project/rootcandy
Preview of the theme that inspired some of the work: http://drupal.org/files/issues/admin_site_config_2nd_5.png
You can track the work at: http://www.scribd.com/people/view/196844-stevejbayer
Edit: To me, some features I have in mind may need adjustments to drupals core (morphir has working knowledge of Drupals Core and would be seeing to what can work and cannot. If the wireframes are accepted and the theme does go into core (being turned into an addon theme, with most of the features working, would most likely happen thanks to all the interested themers. We are working at it as though it would be going into core, there's no better goal to aim for) all the features planned could be available in Drupal 7.