I am posting this here because I know Mark is reading..

I have always been interested in linux ever since I downloaded root and boot floppies for kernel version 0.97 in the 90's.  I have tried linux on and off over the years and always found it to be unstable, lacking support - at least until i found Ubuntu.  I have been a Ubuntu supporter since version 7 because it was the first distro I loaded that no matter what kind of desktop I threw at it, it ALWAYS seemed to load no problem and it offered a great set of featured applications right out of the box (ever try that with Windows installs?).  Versions up through 8 or 9 I could even load on older PC's..I had 8.04 running on a P-II 450MHZ machine and a 233Mhz bondi blue iMac Rev A -  avoided having to throw that hardware in the trash.  I also appreciated the corporate philosophy of wanting to make software freely available to all people.  

Lately however, I have come to realize that with every new release support for older hardware is going away, increased graphic requirements and processing power are now a prerequisite..that's a sad thing to me because a lot of the software you are running like "openoffice" really doesn't need compositing and more advanced features.  I've tried Xbuntu but I think a lot of users prefer a more polished interface..and gnome was just right..not too much..not too little...if you happened to have a GPU with good OpenGL support then you could have the eye candy, but otherwise it defaulted back to a usable generic system and that was great.

I have more than one netbook and I thought that the netbook remix launcher was really cool for that platform, big ol' clunky "fisher price" icons, great for people not used to a desktop too  - and there, on such a small screen playing with the window controls makes sense.  However I'm afraid that I just don't care for Unity on the desktop. 

You are trying to simplify the desktop interface?  How is Unity "simpler" than having three simple drop down menus at the top of the screen that say "Applications",  "Places" and "Settings"  ?   How is hiding the standard close, minimize, maximize buttons until you mouse over them "simpler" ?   How is replacing the application menu with a composited, compartmentalized display with a ton of expand/collapse/close window controls "simpler"  ?  

You are combining like the worst features of the windows vista start menu with the worst features of the OS X dock, and somehow the team believes that is an improvement?   I used to recommend Ubuntu to ALL of my windows friends because it was RELIABLE (compared to windows) and the gnome desktop really WAS simpler than windows, very little learning curve.  Now I can't really imagine anyone who is used to MS Windows being able to pick up how to navigate in Ubuntu without some serious tutoring help.  You've just created the need to prompt first time users to go through an online training course.   

Actually that's not a bad idea, if you want people to feel comfortable then be the first distro that offers to walk people through the application interface (ala - remote control style) when they log on for the first time.

I like unity on my netbook, but I am really disappointed running it on my full screen desktop.  I am really disappointed in the direction this product is going.  

I upgraded to 11.10 and whenever I log on now I get a warning about not being able to find a proper scan mode..I wanted to get you the actual message but it is taking a while to open a terminal since I tried to click on the dash button and it took five seconds to load the menu, tried to click "More Apps" and it wouldn't do anything, clicked the Maximize button, it shaded the full screen  and then I clicked "More Apps" again and it finally showed "SOMETHING" on the screen, but still now terminal - so I searched for terminal - and it found 7 things that "said" terminal so I clicked the one that said "terminal" but I didn't see that it was in the list of things that could be downloaded and installed and not in the list of things that were already installed..all of this JUST to open the terminal and view the X server logs???  You have GOT to be kidding right..  Oh and by the way, my system used to shut down practically instantaneously - now it just sits there for about 20 seconds after I click "Yes I want to shut down" and finally things start "blinking away" until the ubuntu logo comes up again..  I'm very disappointed.  I just searched for and clicked to start the text editor so I could paste this in case the web interface hiccuped when I try to post and the text editor didn't even appear on my screen - are you kidding me?  I started it a second time and it finally appeared.  Is there a problem with my video chipset that is causing all of these issues..  I'm sorry Mark, I can't recommend Ubuntu anymore..windows now has a more reliable UI.