That said, I'm glad to see that somebody likes Unity. Ubuntu's switch to Unity is one of the reasons that I left Ubuntu for another distro.
It seems like Canonical is targeting its product more towards people like the author of this post, in which case it seems that their strategy may be working.
People who haven't used Linux / Gnome before don't have those expectations and optimizations, so it's not surprising that they will have a more positive view of Unity. Also, Canonical is trying to make Unity emulate OS X to some extent, so the interface meets some expectations of Mac users. They will probably respond more positively.
One of the first things I did when I upgraded to 10.04 was to move the window controls back to the right side.
http://quandyfactory.com/blog/59/ubuntu_1004_first_thoughts#...
I use Xubuntu on my netbook as my students can work out how to get a wordprocessor going or load a youtube video in class.
On the desktop pc I use dwm (large widescreen monitor) and I'm loving the efficiency. In fact, I install dmenu on all the computers and bind it to Super-Space.
Agreed - it wouldn't have been a reason by itself, but it was an annoyance.
More broadly, Ubuntu seems to be moving towards focusing on providing a polished interface, out-of-the-box support, and all of the other things that would be necessary for luring users away from OS X. That's fine, but they're frankly very low on my list of requirements for an OS, so I used the opportunity to switch to a distro that better fit my needs.
As I said, if that's their intended userbase, I'm glad their goal is working. It just so happens that I'm not one of those users.
Ubuntu should be supporting its users before they all leave, not trying to woo people who prefer something else.
The thing that I'm worried about though, similar to what you're pointing out, is that it feels like they're not making Ubuntu for the previous users of Ubuntu anymore. I still run 11.10 with Unity, but it's getting to a point where I'm noticing an increase of time where I am turning off a bunch of annoying things that Ubuntu have added over time.
I have XFCE on all my other machines that need a desktop environment and it looks like this sole Ubuntu machine will head that way soon.
The kind of people who like the way it works now should also be able to change it back if they want. If not, we're talking about less than 1% of desktop users. I wouldn't spend much time worrying about them, personally.
They are doing really cool (and actually usable stuff) with features like Switchboard+Plugs, Synapse, Pantheon, etc. so am really interested in switching.
It takes a bit more time to set up, since you're building your system from the ground up with exactly the applications you want. Once you do, though, you know your system inside and out, and you can customize it exactly the way you want it.
If you have a 'do-it-yourself' attitude, you'll love Arch. If not, you may be annoyed by having to set up things that Ubuntu sets up during the installation (major things like the DE/WM, and minor things like setting up international fonts). Personally, I appreciate knowing exactly what and where everything is on my system and not having the added bloat, hence the switch.