I have to admit I am a little bit of a Gnome hater, because I was a very happy Gnome 2.6(?) user when they moved my cheese (and then moved it again, and again, and again) - Gnome was for me until they decided I wasn’t the kind of user they wanted anymore.
Having said that, I appreciate the point you are making, and I only (tangentially) referenced Gnome in my first comment because the contrast is huge. KDE likes you to use the system how you want. (and it’s one of the things I love about KDE) Gnome likes you to use the system how they want. That’s all there is to it, regardless of how reasonable the logic behind that distinction may be.
thfi
ikidd