"But even for people who liked the design, it has grown more problematic over time with the proliferation of bigger monitors"

Yes, this.

I think in everyone's rush for "convergence" they just forgot about the desktop. I think the final winning solution will be more the Ubuntu/Canonical approach (and that they are a bit ahead of Windows now) in that we will have both options available and with a bit more time, you can easily choose from "interface profiles"

On a big multiscreen desktop, I love and have for a long time loved, "in app menus" and Focus-Follow-Mouse. But on my 10" netbook? I'm actually pretty happy with global menu and click-focus because usually I'm just alt-tabing between full screen apps.

Different situations call for different solutions. The real winner will be the solution that provides all options and the flexibility to seamlessly move between them, and as I said, I think Ubuntu is much closer. Windows with their entire new set of "Metro" apps and bigger "classic desktop"/metro separation I think has gone down the wrong path.