When I first saw GUI code, for a prototype MacIntosh on the Lisa, I
said, "You have got to be kidding.  Nobody is going to go to all this
fuss for a simple app.  I was wrong."

It has not improved that much.

Some things you can do.  

1. Subclass components to put in all your standard tweakings. That way
you can change your "style" in one place and reduce the clutter.  We
need something the equivalent of CSS style sheets for Java GUIs to
hide the details of layout and look.  That goes much further than just
subclassing.

2. use nested panels.

3. separate the allocation and field attributes from the layout.  Keep
business logic separate from both.

4. make great use of the "extract constant" feature to parameterise
your code with named constants.  It is a lot easier to maintain a
named constant that dig in the code for multiple places to change
something.

5. keep your attribute setting methods is a standard order.

I recommend other patterns than MVC. For me MVC is good
as a component pattern, for applications there are better
patterns.

1) As with MVC, separate the domain from the rest.

2) Almost always separate the GUI construction, configuration,
layout, and fine grained events (e.g. mouse over) from the
presentation logic; hence, use an MVP variant or "Presentation Model".
The choice between MVP and "Presentation Model" depends on
the toolkit, associated binding support, etc. For Swing,
I favor to follow the "Presentation Model" pattern, because
several Swing core components already use this pattern.

I provide a free presentation regarding Java desktop patterns
that presents and compares MVC, MVP, and Presentation Model,
see http://www.jgoodies.com/articles/ I also provide a free
binding library that assists in using the Presentation Model
pattern, see http://www.jgoodies.com/downloads/libraries.html

Just as a side note. I recommend to favor flat over nested panels
for editor that are perceived as a single sheet. Nesting in Swing
means loosing layout constraints, grid information, and hence
ends up often in unaligned, arbitrary component positions.

-Karsten