unwrapping mesh for texturing

An idea came to me whilst i was trying to texture a bit of scenary. I haven't seen this feature in any modellers so far either. Why when you unwrap something is it unwrapped with some triangles not visable. I know that you simply select them and unwrap them along a different axis.

But, why don't unwrappers, unwrap mesh's so all vertexs corospond to the mesh? Without squashing them together? Surely you get the distances between each vertex and place them so all layout nicely for selection. Does anyone get what i'm saying?

I'm not exactly sure what you are describing, but it sounds a lot like the "Relax UVs" tool common to a lot of the better UV mapping software.

but how would a computer know exactly how you want your complex mesh laying out. a lot so the skill in unwrapping is down to the user.
the autounwrap features can be handy, but not always done the way you want it.
Its easier in a lot of cases to use a combination fo planar and cylindrical mapping to get a good uv layout.