How to ruin simple, useful and mandatory interfaces

Our house has these water taps that have knobs... Well, this description does not exactly reveal how unique they are! Like hinted on the post about TASCS, the knobs are expertly crafted to possess extreme grip when dry, and not so when wetness is present! In the shower the cold water knob needs an initial offset rotation of half turn for water to start running, and then must keep about 3/2 of the rotation of the hot water counterpart so that temperature is kept constant (the water can get really hot, as noted on the post about our "home").
In the kitchen, the hot water knob is hard to turn (imagine your hands full of dish washing liquid). In Usability Design, there is an evaluation heuristic for this: H2-3 "Ensure user control and freedom". This "rule" was clearly violated!
On the shower, you have two knobs that don't have a feature that let you know how much has been opened or closed. The state of the system can only be extrapolated a posteriori based on the burning sensation upon skin contact with the water. If you are not the one taking the shower, you can also get a screaming sound as an indication of incorrect water mixture. The heuristic failing here is H2-1 "Ensure good visibility of system status".
Then on the bathroom sink, the cold water rotates the opposite way! A clear violation of usability heuristic H2-4 "use consistency and standards". So what?! - you ask - Ok, it takes you two iterations to open it, but when you want to close it, you naturally open it even more! Luckily the water goes directly to the fosset and does not ricochet anywhere; however, you now need two turns to close the water tap!
I could point out a few other heuristic violations, such as H2-5 "Design to prevent user errors", or H2-6 "Design to facilitate recognition rather than recall memory".. There are other water taps that only have a single handle to control both water throughputs, this is arguable if it is decent, but it would improve heuristic H2-7 "Provide for flexibility and efficiency of use"..

As someone said, "poor usability is everywhere"!.. Our water taps may not be the best in the world.. But without them, we would either drown or have no water!