It's completely spot-on; I remember the Gnome 1-to-2 transition and it was exactly like what we have today. Except that Gnome 2 was not as big as Gnome 3, so th

It's completely spot-on; I remember the Gnome 1-to-2 transition and it was exactly like what we have today. Except that Gnome 2 was not as big as Gnome 3, so the transition took a little less time, and its interface wasn't so radically different from Gnome 1, so it didn't generate as much rage (it also helped that uttering the words "brand presence" on the mailing lists would usually get you flamed, but I digress). Gnome 2 actually turned out to be a lot better than Gnome 1, but it took a long time, and the unpleasant thing is that when it finally became polished enough not to be annoying on a daily basis, it enjoyed about two years of quality life before the CADT wheel started spinning again. I'm sure Gnome 3 will eventually be a lot better than Gnome 2 (it already is, in a lot of ways, but it's hard to enjoy it when it keeps crashing and when you have to tweak it for days after every update). At least on the GTK side, things are actually starting to look a little better (the GTK team has a long-term roadmap, for instance).