For a long time that was my approach to LoB backoffice applications: make the backend clever enough that there is no need for non-trivial user interfaces (in the sense of being non-trivial to implement). That in part works well but on the other hand there are situations when the user knows more, uses the thing every day and thus making something something that looks like sci-fi UI (or like something straight out of mid-90's OS HIG, with the difference being mostly about color choice) makes sense.
