But I consoled myself with the idea that at least it was done to make it more friendly for touch devices—that I didn’t happen need at the time on my PCs.
Guess what? Fast forward a decade. Just got a new linux tablet and come to find out gnome is often shitty and unusable there too. Menus tiny, often keyboard only interfaces! Phosh is decent but none of the video players have a UI in the ballpark of Netflix/Android. All the touch targets are TINY, no tap in the center to play/pause, no tap on sides to skip either. Often have state bugs where the UI won’t hide after an interaction. Won’t stay full screen.
I had to install a new file manager named Portfolio that was actually touch friendly. Making things round is not enough.
So much was lost and we didn’t even get a good touch interface out of the bargain! And their broken interfaces have infected mate, xfce, cinnamon as well.