@Mark Shuttleworth:
>Nonsense, again. Ubuntu has *always* aimed for usability, always gone
 >the extra mile to make it easy to install and easy to embrace and easy
 >to share Linux. I don't think it's cool to be too cool for that mission,
 >but if you are in fact too cool for that mission, please don't denigrate
 >the work of those of us who care about it.

It's not a matter of being "too cool" for the mission  of making Ubuntu more usable. You've got two types of people complaining about Unity. Neither is "too cool" to support said mission. 

One group has a workstyle for which GNOME 2 is more usable than Unity and feels abandoned by the disappearance of GNOME 2 (and the fact that GNOME 3's fallback mode is a less suitable replacement than XFCE), and some members of that group don't realize that it's GNOME, not Canonical, that's responsible for there not being a suitably back-compatible replacement for GNOME 2. I belong to this group (namely, the part of it that recognizes that the disappearance of GNOME 2 is not Canonical's fault). I generally agree with them about the usability of Unity (given that a good part of the OS industry seems to be going to similar interfaces, a good chunk of the population probably has a work style for which Unity is usable. For me, however, it's totally unusable). I do, however, realize that 1) Canonical is pursuing a user base that may have an easier time with Unity, and 2) it's probably more productive to complain to the GNOME project, given that it seems much more reasonable to me for a distribution to switch DE's if it doesn't think its current DE's interaction model is the best for its target users (given that users can always go back to the previous DE) than for a DE to suddenly switch interaction models (given that a DE's core users are the users that find its interaction model to be the best in the world, and that if a DE switches models, its original model ceases to be available).

This first group is making a lot of complaints that I think have been wearing your (and the rest of the Canonical team's) nerves thin, with unfortunate consequences for the second group.

The second group, I think, is the one you really need to listen to. This is made up of people (like Tal Liron) that like Unity's interaction model, but find it lacking in some small way or other (as opposed to the big ways that I and others in the first group find it lacking). The important thing about this group is that it is likely to be at least somewhat representative of the new users you're aiming to acquire (assuming that the analysis that new users are more likely to be attracted by Unity is accurate). If you want to solve bug #1, you're going to have to listen to this group, especially insofar as Microsoft has implemented the features they're asking for. 

The second group is complaining about the fixed launcher (From screenshots I've seen, the Windows 7 task bar remains movable, as does the OS X dock) and the minimization issue (Windows has been training 90% of your potential users for years that the place you click to maximize a minimized window can also be clicked to minimize it when it's maximized, and while I haven't used Win7 a lot, I don't think it's changed anything).

When you receive a complaint about Unity, ask yourself which group it's coming from. If it's coming from the first group, ignore it. We're just feeling abandoned (and not really by you) and don't know where to go next, and that makes people grumpy. If it's coming from the second group, or from both groups, take it *very* seriously, and ignore it at your peril, as it could very well be an issue that new users will have when switching. 

@Art Cancro:
>Canonical (and Mark S. in particular) are openly hostile towards the vast majority of Ubuntu users who have a strong dislike for Unity and want it removed, or at least made optional.

It *is* optional. One can install XFCE and forget that Unity even exists. 

>Many of us are now, or will soon be, ex-Ubuntu users.

Why? When Lucid hits end-of-life, I will almost certainly continue using Ubuntu. I will almost certainly *not*, however,  start using Unity.