Comment 121 for bug 668415

Currently I am using a vertical auto-hide panel (as a quicklauncher) on the left side and a vertical panel (that includes the systray, taskmanager, and a few applets - kima, weather, clock, etc.) on the right side. I am actually using KDE3. Why ? Not because it looks better (it's a matter of taste) or because I "hate" gnome. It's simply because it lets me configure it according to most of my needs (ergonomical & aesthetical) in a very simple way.
For instance, try to change the orientation of the gnome panel from horizontal to vertical - big trouble. Why wouldn't I want to use the panel in vertical mode (especially nowadays when there are resolutions down to 700 and smth pixels on the vertical)? Why the gnome panel was not designed to support the vertical orientation? Total mistery to me.
 As long as the requirements I mentioned above in the post are not met, I stick to my opinion - it's not a DE, it's just a collection of apps.