I recently installed Windows 7 on a machine after using Gnome 3, so I could give it to my parents. This was the first Windows I'd installed since XP, and Windows 7 is downright primitive by comparison. Gnome 3 supports my workflow very well -- one terminal fullscreened, running screen, one workspace for browsers, and one for mail.

I'm not sure what the complaints are about it, and to me it's preposterous to say that Windows 7 is an improvement.

Yeah, right now I'm running Windows 7 on my desktop which is used only every now and then and my laptop is running Arch with XFCE. Have you taken a look at the fallback mode on Gnome 3? I tried it and it brought back the features I was used to but just the idea that it was a fallback mode was kinda unappealing, what makes the mode any worse off than gnome-shell?

What is IAR?

The window manager in Windows 7 is excellent. Double click a title, make that window maximize. Have a wide screen? Drag one window to the left, one window to the right and you have a split screen. The ALT+TAB on Windows 7 works without using the mouse which is salt in the wounds of GNOME 3 considering you can't do the above mentioned split screening/minimizing. Supposedly alt+` at least does the old GNOME 2 alt+tab behavior but I learned that after converting to XFCE.