I switched to Gnome 3 (and Gnome Shell) the moment it was released. The biggest problems IMO were the broken/dropped features and the graphics driver glitches.

I switched to Gnome 3 (and Gnome Shell) the moment it was released. The biggest problems IMO were the broken/dropped features and the graphics driver glitches. The shell, which is what I suppose defines the experience, was great from day 1. I consider it a major leap forward and, for the most part, it just feels natural and does what you want it to. A lot has improved since the first release, removed features came back, bugs were fixed, UI was tweaked. There are still some (stupidly) rough edges here and there that piss me off but you get used to them, wait for a fix, or use a shell extension. Verdict: Buy (unless you want a tiling window manager)