Yup unity was what spelled the end for the Ubuntu wave. I think this has been the single biggest mistake they made. I think it will take at least a decade again to bring the linux desktop to the masses.

Gnome 2 was perfect for people coming from windows moving over. Gnome 3 is like windows vista.

Me personally, I was really disappointed (of course you can install gnome 2 etc). But at the end of the day you just want something that works out of the box.