Ok I've played with the gift registry for the first time in my life.  It was very hard to figure it out. 

I've created an account, created a registry, and tried to add products to the registry.  It took me 4 tries to figure it out.  Can you imagine how a customer would feel?  So you click on add products to your registry, then you browse to the products you like, and then nothing.  You have to add the item to your shopping cart before adding to the registry.  The problem is that it doesn't say so, and customers get lost.   It needs an additional button for "add to registry", just like you have one for "wish list" or "add to shopping cart" on the product page. 

I would turn off the gift registry for my customers, because of this flaw, and noticed that you cannot disable it in the back end.