well, automator isn't a user action recorder.. (although it has that as one of it's options).. i guess what you guys are talking about is similar to creating an action in photoshop where i push record/do some things/stop recording then when i play the action, it will repeat what i did..
the basic interface that i'm talking about looks like this:
http://homepage.mac.com/jeffhammond/.Public/scf/auto.jpg
i can select which type of file etc i would like to control and then a list of options for that appear (the screenshot shows the options for file/folders.. a new set of options shows up if i select say 'sort finder items' (by date,type,size,name,etc) ) and there's a list of varibles as well..
basically, it's letting me write a script without actually writing.. the same idea as a mouse with windows/icons etc compared to a command line...