I've been a redhat/fedora user from RH5 and have always run the GNOME desktop. But besides for the reasons you mentioned, I've grown increasingly more annoyed with the cartoonish look of the desktop. I've just blown off Fedora at home and am using Ubuntu Unity, which I really like. As far as the news about Valve, I used to run Valve game dedicated servers. I can't wait to see what's coming down that pike!