[laumars]

In my personal opinion, Windows 95 was pretty much the benchmark for how to build an intuitive and productive desktop environment.

There's obviously a few things that have come since that have improved upon it (eg quick search in the start menu / launcher, and the way how Linux better groups applications in it's launchers than Windows does in it's start menu) as well as mistakes made since (Windows quick launch start menu tool bar being one prime example). But for me, Microsoft really did create the design concept of optimal working environment.

Obviously this is just my preferences - many would disagree. But I think the reason why there are so many variations on the Windows 95 desktop is because many people feel like myself in that it's a paradigm that works extremely well for them too.

[wvenable]

I agree and many attempts to push away from the Windows 95 design in order to be different have been usability nightmares

[zanny]

I've had a lot of people have good experiences with the Unity launcher. It is highly divisive from anything else on the market (it is a search frame always with filtering tabs) but does its job nicely. Homerun from KDE acts the exact same, except it is a full screen version.