One thing that bugs me to no end is the SQL Server table designer and its default view for creating and editing columns. Entering column properties is pure mousercise as you have to jump back and forth between different input panes. I don't know about you but this is one of the most user hostile user interfaces I can imagine. The original view looks like this:

I find myself constantly bumping back and forth between the top pane and the column properties view which usually has to be scrolled to get to common values I'd like to enter. It's a painful UI experience. Oddly you also can't control what columns display in this funky view.

I've used this for ages and cursed it ever since. This goes way back - the SQL Management Console pretty much had the same sort of view if I remember right. 

Well, it turns out that you CAN get a different view if you use the Database Diagram Designer. In the diagram designer you can get a view with more information by creating a custom view like this:

 
What's cool is that you can create a new custom  view, save it and then switch to it as needed in the designer. It sucks that you have to go to the Diagram Designer to get this view - it would be much cleaner if you could get this same conformability in the standard table editor, but this is better than nothing.

Using this layout it's much more efficient to create new tables and fill in relevant column info with one simple pass rather than having to jump around all over the place and it saves a shitload of time especially when first setting up a new database.

I am embarrased to say that I didn't find this until recently when I stumbled into the Table View menu in the diagram designer (which I rarely used before, but now use quite frequently <g>).

It's not very discoverable feature, so hopefully this gives a some of you an "aha" moment like it did for me...