I... Partially agree with you that every UX is "engineered" but that depends on how far we're willing to stretch that definition in the design domain.

I'd hardly call any workflow I design an engineered one (even if I like this field), when compared to something produced by an UX designer (or a team of them) who specialises in the field. Maybe someone put a lot of thought into the gimp UX, but it seems like a wasted effort (or maybe it was just inexperience). I don't know how to phrase this without it sounding insensitive, though. I'm not criticising the people, just this instance of their work, so I hope it inspires them to improve. I'd like to see Gimp become as successful as krita or inkscape (which had UX issues for years, too)

I realise gimp is free, but there also seems to be a general attitude amongst gimp contributors that they think the UX is fine, while most people (in my circles, at least) disagree with that view