I just took XUbuntu for a spin. It's just as great as the 13.10 release. If you're a GNOME refugee and looking for an excellent desktop then I can't recommend XUbuntu enough.
That is the only weird issue I've had, apart from that 14.04 is a very solid release.
I am grateful for this choice.
An aversion to orphaned software is clearly good for things at a security boundary (web browsers, sshd, etc), but is it really an issue for a launcher? In 3-5 years it may not be good enough, but shrug, if that's the case I'll have another look around then. It's not like launchers have lock-in.
If synapse ever stops doing what I want I'll probably take a stab at writing one.