Reading this made me picture trying to drive a car by voice: "Turn left. Left. Further left. More! AHH! NOT SO MUCH!" Here voice control seems like a desire to avoid having to clearly specify your request. "Didn't the car KNOW where I wanted to go? Doesn't this spreadsheet KNOW what numbers I want? Doesn't this fast food menu KNOW what food I want? Maybe if I could just tell it..." I suspect that voice recognition will be popular in the future, but it will seem a lot less sexy if users are still required to clearly specify what they want.
You've got it exactly -- the more important thing, IMO, is systems "knowing" what you want, predicting your behavior, in a way that is completely effortless, transparent, and expected. I'm doing that now with my startup, using pre-scripted actions, but hope to see user-adaptive, learning systems (e.g. the Nest thermostat) find their way into everything.
