Gnome 3 desktop issues

[Wendell Nichols <wcn00 shaw ca>]

I've been using Linux in one form or another for almost 20 years to 
write software.  My desktop is busy and I keep connections to about 10 
other desktops open for testing and development on other acrhitectures 
and languages.  I like linux because it is flexable... or was.  I keep 
all these desktops configured roughly the same so I don't have huge 
mental shifts to make when going from machine to machine.  That is:  one 
panel, on the bottom containing the menu, workspaces, notification area 
etc.  The rest of the screen is dedicated to doing MY work.  IMHO 
desktops should be invisible until you need them not crowding out your 
apps and laying multiple title bars on things.
My laptop is Ubuntu 10, but I need to upgrade.  I've tested several new 
distributions:
-ubuntu 11 unity; absolute disaster  seems designed for cell phones or 
somehing
-ubuntu 11, fedora or opensuse with gnome 3.  basic functionality is 
there but there is no way to consolidate the top and bottom panel into 
one at the bottom.  That is an absolute requirement.

Currently if nothing changes I will migrate to a KDE desktop, but I find 
it slow and some of my favourite apps are not available or don't work 
well in KDE.  The really sick thing is that I find myself using windoze 
7 more and more these days and not hating it like I would if linux 
desktops were up to the job.

sigh.
Sorry to make my first post so negative but I feel that the most open 
and inclusive computing environment I've ever used has taken a rather 
sad turn for the worse.

Wendell Nichols
Software Architect