I know at one point Microsoft and IBM both invested significantly in studying UX research. It doesn't feel like that's happening or if it is, I guess I must be drifting out of touch with what's considered intuitive in user interfaces. It's not just MS either, I feel like the ability to discover what you can do in an app/site any more is hidden by aesthetic choices over functional ones.

I remember being pulled into user surveys and usability studies while wandering the mall back in the day and being given series of tasks to accomplish on various iterations of a windows GUI (in the Windows 9x era) while they observed, and then paid $100 for my time for each one I participated in.