Just so you know, GNOME Shell looks much nicer if you use the Adwaita theme instead of Ambiance or Radiance (which I think you're using in that screenshot). This is mostly because Ubuntu's icon theme doesn't provide symbolic icons (but does use proper icon names, sometimes), so those status icons in the top bar get weird and disjointed.
I'm glad you gave it a second chance! I'm a huge fan of GNOME Shell. I honestly think it's the best desktop environment I've used, on any OS. It's impressively stable these days, and despite some peoples' claims to the contrary, I think I can get _a lot_ of work done with it