Could you explain why? Last time I used Java (years ago), Swing was supposedly replacing AWT. Swing seemed very large (certainly, judging by the page-count of all the Swing books on bookstore shelves), and required a lot of subclassing to use.

When I tried it out, it was slow, to be sure, but it was also relatively easy to use. The layout managers worked well for my simple apps. I also liked the "Metal" theme, though others complained that Metal was unreservedly ugly.