I am a geek type, and one who accepts that technology changes and different != automatically awful.
The fact that everyone said the same thing about Unity and are now coming around to it, proves my point. I happen to love Gnome-Shell. I don't mind Unity and I think Win8 is great after you take some time to get used to it.
Your generalizations are incorrect. While a lot of people were very vocal on their opposition to Gnome shell and Unity, I wouldn't say "everyone" opposed them. In fact, I didn't. I considered the move risky, of course.
I think Metro for desktops and notebooks makes very little sense unless you use a multi-touch pointing device like Apple's trackpad. With a mouse, it's painful.
Yes, heh, I did not mean literally everyone, but even much of HN is still full of Unity hate. I managed to get down to at least -8 or -9 by my calculations the other day for trying to combat nonspecific Unity hate-rants. I understand skepticism, like I said, I really just roll my eyes at the "it sucks [with no reasons]" that are evident even in this thread.
And it doesn't completely answer your criticism but many Synaptic touchpads for a looong time are multitouch capable, they're just not utilized. It's different, I'll grant that, I didn't think it was painful, but I adapt quickly and I don't mind scrolling with the wheel to move horizontally. (The proverbial) You get used to it.
The fact that everyone said the same thing about Unity and are now coming around to it, proves my point. I happen to love Gnome-Shell. I don't mind Unity and I think Win8 is great after you take some time to get used to it.