I hated Unity when it came out, It sent me running to Linuxmint which I set up to look and work pretty much like Ubuntu had done since 2005. Ubuntu's unity was so slow on my hardware and Mint was somewhat better but I ended up running a lightweight LXDE desktop to get some speed back. I distro hopped and ended up on Crunchbang for some time launching programs from the terminal with a few key clicks... It was using this that allowed me to seamlessly go straight back to Ubuntu 12.04, Now pressing Alt , Or the Windows Key and typing is so much simpler and I get to run a fully functional and modern desktop. I am quite surprised myself just how much I am happy with it.