Why does the startup disk creator suck so bad?

[Alan McKay]

Hey folks, I love, love, love Ubuntu but holy crow the Startup Disk
Creator has been buggy as hell for quite a few releases now.  I've
used it on numerous computers and releases - even VMs - and it always
requires a half dozen executions to format the USB drive before you
can install it.

What's up with that?   I can't imagine it is something I'm doing wrong
but you never know.    Could it be?

-- 
“Don't eat anything you've ever seen advertised on TV”
         - Michael Pollan, author of "In Defense of Food"