GNOME2+ is still around, that's what Mate is. GNOME 3 and later releases has great support for convergence, which is incredibly popular among users - while also being very easy to use via the keyboard, for a more traditional workflow. Ubuntu's Unity interface was built with similar goals, so this is quite far from a pure GNOME thing.
Many high-end laptops have touchscreens these days. So the resemblance is quite appropriate. I would like to see a "compact", non-touchscreen mode in case no touch hardware is being used but it should be optional, for users who are okay with that level of fine-grained control.
