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Never understood this: why can't writers who do not want distractions simply use a normal word processor (Word and Pages come to mind) and just don't spend their time fiddling with the formatting?

I've never seen it being sold for $6, it's always on sale for a much lower prices - which means it's pretty much the best writing app you can get for the price. I also find the autohiding preferences/help panels very useful, they are only one shortcut tap away anyways.
You didn't mention the awesome typing sound it makes - the kind of old school touch that really makes you keep typing, the result being awesome productivity.

AlfyBurgerdHaemps3a, on 29 March 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

The toolbars alone in Word are a huge distraction.

Maybe that's why everyone loved WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS back in the day. It was just an empty screen, no distractions, and all you saw was plain text.

Note that the developer of Clean Writer Pro is also the author of Clean Writer, which he has now abandoned. Besides the fact that there are many better options for the same or only a tiny bit more money, I'd never purchase anything from this developer again. The idea of purchasing an app and then being told that I have to purchase a new version of the exact same app in order to continue to get updates because of issues he is supposedly having between Apple and his developer account is not acceptable.

AlfyBurgerdHaemps3a, on 29 March 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

This is true to some extent. However, applications such as WriteRoom and ByWord actually offer a few features that Word and Pages do not, while at the same time launching much more quickly and consuming very few system resources.

Give Bean a try some time:
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html
It's free and essentially an upgraded TextEdit with most of the additional features of "minimal" writing applications.

AlfyBurgerdHaemps3a, on 29 March 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

Part of the problem is that with all those controls available, some people simply get distracted. Another part is that with standard word processing software you're working in a window where things in the background are still visible and again could be distracting (especially if it's an animated desktop or you have animated icons.) A full-screen app tries to cover all those distractions and offer a soothing, non-glare backdrop to help you focus on your work. I've tried a number of these (free demos or sometimes fully-paid apps) and simply found most of them more distracting to me.
Where I work best is late at night when nobody is in the room with me, though I may have TV or music in the background simply to keep it from getting too quiet. In other words, people are the distraction rather than what's on screen.

I would recommend Writeroom or just use word with full screen. That takes away all toolbars and menus. And if you want a dark color, you can use blue background with white text as in old wordperfect days. Just a few clicks away in preferences.