I'll preface this by mentioning that I am not the level of power-user you are (I don't rely on my OS for my job) therefore your specific needs are far different

I'll preface this by mentioning that I am not the level of power-user you are (I don't rely on my OS for my job) therefore your specific needs are far different than mine. Linux Mint has surprised me with v14 and Cinnamon. I used MATE in v13 and never thought I'd try the forsaken GNOME3 again. However with the new update I figured I'd give it a shot. It's actually better, for my use case, than MATE. The workspace switching is very nice, the hotcorner for workspace quick view is great on my laptop, but it's configurable and shortcuts still work fine. Everything runs like it did in Gnome 2/MATE but it feels more modern. All the while Mint is making Linux (well, Debian/Ubuntu) even more user friendly and cohesive. I never want to have iOS or Microsoft's equivalent to be my primary OS. Leave that for my pocket. But I also don't want to roll my own distro (I tried Arch over the summer and ran into too many roadblocks with my laptop). Mint isn't finding a middle ground. It's just what I want.