I wrote the article. I do not understand your points here. GNOME 2 does not have global menus. GNOME 2 did not have minimal window decorations, with separate

I wrote the article. I do not understand your points here. GNOME 2 does not have global menus. GNOME 2 did not have minimal window decorations, with separate min./max/close/menu buttons. GNOME 2 (and MATE) does have: * a taskbar with iconic buttons for windows (a Win95 innovation); * a hierarchical app-launch menu (a Win95 innovation); * a system tray with the clock and status icons at the opposite end of the panel from the app-launch menus (a Win95 refinement of a MacOS feature). And so on. I think you're remembering wrongly or are confusing different GNOME versions.