Exactly right. I am going to state the obvious here. UI's should be designed around their input methods. If the input on a tablet and a desktop are different

Exactly right. I am going to state the obvious here. UI's should be designed around their input methods. If the input on a tablet and a desktop are different (mouse vs fingers) then use a different UI. Plain and simple. Gnome 2.3 was a very, very good UI aimed at desktops. 3.0 is another kinda sorta tablet UI that only kinda sorta works on desktops (I am playing around with Gnome 3.0, XFCE, and a few others). The fundamental problem is that what works well with one in one input environment breaks badly in another. This was Apple's great contribution with the iPhone and the iPad. Attempts to merge environments will get you with something that kinda sorta works everywhere and does not work anywhere well.