Anything to help design GUI like a paint program? (Delphi, VB, MSVC, QtBuilder, etc)
And anything to help build packages, set permissions, etc?
What is there out there to take the drudge work out of Android app creation and leave me free to concentrate on design and development?
DroidDraw, already mentioned, can help for the GUI. It now supports a few more root layouts, including ScrollView and TableLayout. It doesn’t do much that can’t be done in Eclipse, though.
Google is doing some research on a wysiwyg editor called App Inventor but if it does come out it’s unlikely to be soon.
Edit: Spoke too soon, App Inventor’s already out here
Try to take the time to get used to the tool (Android Eclipse plugin), it already takes care of a lot for you.