For me priorities would be having basic
functionality, like copy/paste, working properly
It really should work. Since ages. Care to elaborate where copy and paste doesn't work in Gnome? Cause that's really a bug.
or how about a task-switching applet (activated
on alt-tab) that can use the mouse to select the
window you want;
You can do that with Gnome 3. Press Alt-Tab, hold down Alt and click around to your app. Works like a charm here.
or desktop notification windows that you can
close (those notifications in Ubuntu are really
obnoxious)
In Gnome 3 (and also Gnome 2 fwiw) you can close the notifications by clicking on them. But even better, in Gnome 3 you can set yourself as busy (click on your name in the top-right corner and select "Busy") so notifications will stay silent in the hidden notification area and won't disturb you.
It really should work. Since ages. Care
to elaborate where copy and paste doesn't
work in Gnome?
Copy something in one app, close it, then try pasting in another app -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, depending on the app or on its mood, and this behavior has been going on for ages, up until Ubuntu 10.10, which I'm using.
I'm happy to find that Gnome 3 has usability improvements. I'll definitely try it out.
I don't know what I'm confused about, and I don't really care about technical details -- the behavior of copy/paste has been inconsistent to me.
Reading that article, if it really is the reason for what is happening, it kind of makes sense, but that's no comfort to me when I'm losing my selection because I have closed the origin; behavior that isn't even consistent across apps.
