On the topic of Unity: I, a linux user since the mid 90s, worked an actual linux job through the forced deprecation of GNOME 2.. I don't have much anything constructive to say about it. I even used fvwm2 for a while after gnome2 got yoinked.. it was a nice reminder of my halcyon days writing perl in xemacs, running fvwm on my sparc 2. It wasn't too long after that I landed on xfce. I still wonder what gnome2 could've been.
All I ever wanted was a compositing, focus-follows-mouse, raise/lower window manager with a full-featured keyboard shortcut config. I still feel as though we were sold out. I don't think my mental representation of Canonical will ever recover. It just felt so blatantly anti-user during that period, and that impression has not been tempered with the passage of time.