I understand why you might think this way, but realize that the language was created by a pretty smart guy -- Dr. Brad Cox -- and he had one main goal in mind: Be a strict superset of C (not even C++ does this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_of_C_and_C%2B%2B#Constructs_valid_in_C_but_not_C.2B.2B)
He also wanted it to be truly object-oriented and dynamic in every sense. Your comment therefore has some innaccuracies / unfairness to it:
"The Obj-C creator basically didn't know how to code linker-loader address binding"
This is by design. It allows dynamic messaging. You can even, for example, send a message to nil and everything is fine.
"He also didn't know about name mangling"
Again, only something you need in a statically linked object-inheritance style language like C++.
"method names and args are explicitly named, so you end up with arg named calling methods like [obj method:arg1 count:count]"
Again, by design. Named arguments makes Objective-C one of the best languages for code readability. You don't have to wonder what the arguments are!
"For adding properties to a class you have enter the same info in triplicate"
Good point -- this is frustrating even in ObjC-2.0. They should get rid of @synthesize and do it automatically.
"the creator didn't understand the value of name space partitioning in OOP"
Dr Cox certainly understood. He just wanted to keep things as close to "pure" C as possible, and had a different way of partitioning spaces -- use 2 letter codes. This is primitive but surprisingly effective, and why all Cocoa objects begin with NS. Think of all the typing this saves, and you never have to wonder what namespace context you're in.
"mind-numbing hyper-verbosity"
I agree that the Cocoa library objects / methods are verbose, but this is a GOOD thing. Also, other more recent languages do the same with there libraries, for example:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system(v=VS.100).aspx
"While the Xcode editor is doing heoric efforts in trying to guess what you meant "
I agree 100% with you -- Code completion in XCode needs to improve
"you still end up doing lots of cut & paste of the Cocoa names"
100% agreed -- XCode needs to have something better than their macro insertion stuff to save me a lot of typing.