I disagree. When first introduced to them, I found the severity levels to be suitably vague to make me read the definitions. Once I read them, it was clear to me what each level means.
Suitably? Do you mean that the severity levels are the way they are to make people read their definitions? :-)
Jokes aside, that's exactly what I don't want. I want them to be even more vague(Low, Medium, High and Critical) and without any definitions except for the highest level. This way, one will elicit more how the user perceives the overall impact of the bug, without having to shoehorn them into some level that only partly matches their impression. Done with the help of the users indisputable "common sense", of course.
Also, the priority flag should not be visible to the user by default, it should be a strangely named setting somewhere in the user preferences.
But bear in mind the severity levels are there to help the developers categorise the bugs, and they are not there to provide feedback to the average non-coding user.
For categorisation, there could be a separate category flag if the "component" categorisation + priority wouldn't suffice.
Whatever. There are many ways to do it. But currently, the users' impression of the problem get lost and/or skewed.
//Nicklas