I've been running into the same brick wall for a while, from both a developer's perspective and as a user. There's some big fallacies propagating amongst people who think they know what usability is. Now I'm not going to claim to be an expert, I know more then I did a few years ago when I first encountered the area as part of my formal studies and had a pretty contemptible view of it.

And that's the first trap: a little knowledge is dangerous. If you don't know enough to know how much you don't know, you're never going to be able to make progress.