Any one who has worked in product development will tell you that one of the biggest challenges is translating the industrial designer's beautiful vision into a manufacturable engineering database. One important reason this so hard is the tools that we work with. To the unititated CAD may look like MacPaint but to the engineer they are attempting to define complex organic forms using commands based on boolean algebra. Doing this while maintaining the elegance of the designer intended required a skilled and experience engineer teamed with a savy and patient designer. What we really need is better tools. We need tools that help with the creative process not stand in the way. We need tools that have their user interface design by developers with a focus on usability not by engineers and mathematicians focused strictly on precision.
Dassault Systemes (of Solidworks and CATIA fame) have posted on their web site a 3D modeling program for 7 - 14 year olds named "Cosmic Blobs" (http://www.cosmicblobs.com). The user interface of this program lets you stretch and squeeze and mold an object to your will without having to be a CAD wizard. Can this be the basis of Dassault's next generation user interface for CAD. One can only hope. This represents the kind of creativity in the UI design that CAD needs.
By the way, check out the article in the January 10, 2005 Design News issue titled "CAD Will Get Easier" for other ideas on what is coming down the road in CAD improvements. You also might want to think about what users are saying about the user interface on your products. User interface design is a young science and most products will benefit from improvements in their UI.