Had a thought on the way into work this am about how spring-loading could be used to further improve the UI, and I'm not just thinking about the much needed spring-loaded folders in the Dock.
Firstly, wouldn't it be nice if it were possible to drag e.g. an image file that you wanted inserted into a particular document over the icon of that document in the Finder and have it spring open (in the appropriate application, auto-launching it if necessary). I could then drag and drop that image to the appropriate location in the document in one continuous and simple action, thus negating the need to go through the rigamarole of opening the app and the document, scrolling to the location I want the image placed, finding the image, and then dragging it to the document to insert it (or going via an insert dialogue). Most obvious problem would be accidental opening of documents while intentionally moving files about the Finder, thus the need to require a keyboard action (e.g. press the spacebar as per spring-loaded folders) to initiate and maintain the behaviour.
Secondly, drag and hover of a file over an open application's icon in the Dock should cause that application to spring to the front (or better yet, its contextual menu to spring open and enable navigation to the desired open application window - which would then spring to the front). Again the spacebar keyboard modifier could be used to initiate the action to prevent unintentional "springiness".
Thirdly, you could extend this to toolbar icons in applications - e.g. dragging a link to your "Add Bookmark" icon would cause the Bookmarks folder/drawer to spring open.
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