@Maarten Kossen
Swiping into any direction would be a nice and handy metaphor for turning  the pages of a book. But instead of this the swiping will reveal the launcher which people might not even know exists because it is auto-hidden on a touch screen? 
Well, nicely done. For me this sound not very logical or intuitive. Especially since many people use tablets as some form of high powered e-reader, e-book, webbrowser and not much more (besides reading e-mails). 

@all
The fact that so many people have problems with only one feature and debate it for over one year now, would make me think about the decisions. I think that all of us really like Ubuntu, the idea behind Ubuntu and even Unity. If we didn't care for Unity, we would not start debating a single feature but instead we would criticize the whole Unity Shell (which is exactly what we are not doing at the moment, which is very good.)
The point is, one can see the arguments against a moveable launcher. But many of them are not really valid anymore. And I am sorry, I cannot see any really conclusive and convincing argument against a movable launcher in the far future. 


@John Lea (and I am afraid I have to get a little bit academic now)
You didn't get my car metaphor right. I was not talking about blocking future developments and innovation. Innovation  is a good thing. I was talking about something that in psychological theories is called the "horizon of expectation". 
If you see a product you expect things. If these expectations are not met they break that horizon of expectations and usually are met with criticism and debate. My analogy was about the doors in a car. Not the number of doors, but the doors itself. If you have a car with two, four or eight doors. You will expect all of them to work as doors and not as windows. You create your own horizon of expectation derived by your life experiences, they define your habits and pattern of thinking. 
The criticism that emerges when breaking this horizon will inevitably create debate, which in itself is not bad. Breaking the horizon of expectation very often resulted in new innovations. But breaking the horizon several times, on multiple points will automatically result in defamiliarization (or alienation) of those who see their horizon of expectations broken too often by the same event/thing. 
Basically the premise under which you developed Unity was good, and well thought. The design is creating familiarities on different points by creating elements you can relate to because they are known, working features in smart  phones, desktops of operating systems, netbook interfaces etc... 
The problem arises when those points which apparently create familiarities are broken when the recipient (user) experiences moments when those familiar paradigms, which create stability, are not working as expected. 
The people here want exactly one feature added. And indeed you can postulate that every single concession made here will result in debates on other places about different topics and different bugs. And thus you might complain that too many user features will result in an unmaintainable Unit. The difference is that there are very very few bugs on launchpad which are debated to extensively, so vigorously and so passionately. This should make you think about it. 
I once told here before. I think the idea of Mark Shuttleworth of a dictator, as somebody whose power lies "in dictandi ingenio", in the power to command  if requested and if necessary, is basically a good thing. Too much debate about everything will destroy a product and make it a formless mass which is unmaintainable code. But a Roman dictator had only a short period of this time of absolute power to command and make decisions. He was never held responsible for those thing he commanded during that period of reign. But after a few month this reign was over and there was again a debate culture in the Roman Senate and the Assemblies. 
What I want to say: if so many people, at least a significant and "audible" number of people, want something, then wouldn't it be right to raise against the topic. Bring it before the assemblies and the senate (so discuss in in some internet fora/forums, on mailing lists of the Dx or design or desktop teams). Make the members of those lists read this whole discussion that is raging for over one year now. And then decide again what is right and what is wrong.