I don't agree with Quick Reply is ugly and unusefull! I think it's very usefull, because you don't have to load the whole reply page, and you can add a comment very quick, that's why it haves the name quick reply
The standard simple quick reply, isn't that great, but if you install advanced quick reply, it's a beautiful quick reply system, you can easy quote someone (just select text from the page, and the advanced quick reply will quote it), and you can click and choose smilies, and it won't load long.. so I think it's a very usefull mod!