Yeah, I know people are working on cloning i3. Perhaps these attempts will be successful some day, but so far, they are very lacking compared to what Gnome gives.
I like being able to configure my computer my own way.
EDIT: Not that i3 lacks features, I've not found much I couldn't do with it. But it doesn't come packaged with a lot of other software like a DE does.
More and more i feel what is needed is not bigger DEs, but more useful, and non-DE oriented, standards.