For the most part I've become comfortable with the UI in Gnome 3, but I mostly avoid it. They've done a lot to fix the initial problems that the interface had, and I think they've got to a good place for the most part.
Try and switch to Gnome 2 / MATE for a little bit and see the drastic improvements in responsiveness, though. That's what kills gnome 3 for me. Even on a nice high spec machine I still end up conscious of the UI latency, and that's really not a good position to be in. The UI needs to get out of the way, and a key part of that is being fast.
Yeah, the UI latency/smoothness is my one main issue with gnome 3. If it wasn't for that I'd be the biggest gnome 3 fanboy around.
I think the shell being written in javascript was a double-edged sword. The extensibility is really cool, but the performance is borderline unacceptable.
I agree, that's why I use the Impatience extension [1]!
I don't use anything GTK2 based any more as the lack of smooth scrolling support is really jarring for me, despite the fact that I still like Gnome2's basic design.
Try and switch to Gnome 2 / MATE for a little bit and see the drastic improvements in responsiveness, though. That's what kills gnome 3 for me. Even on a nice high spec machine I still end up conscious of the UI latency, and that's really not a good position to be in. The UI needs to get out of the way, and a key part of that is being fast.