GNOME 3.0 was released 15 years ago last April.
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2011-Apr...
It is exactly the same desktop today. The most visible changes are that the strange floating word "Activities" is now a strange floating pill instead, whose meaning only becomes apparent once you switch virtual desktops a few times, and that the virtual desktop switcher has moved to become horizontal (i.e. worse and less space-efficient on a widescreen) when it was vertical.
I often hear "try it again, it's really changed" but I see no difference. I powerfully disliked it in 2011 and nothing has changed. It's a bit faster, but there are more hamburger menus now, to the extent that apps like Disks has two of them. It's still horrible.
I am all for UI innovation, but it needs to be informed by what's gone before.
I would like the GNOME development team to spend a while learning to use a few pre-Windows desktop environments efficiently and well, to learn how seriously different layouts can work.
Classic MacOS was sublime. 8.1 was a good snapshot.
RISC OS is a great example.
Original Psion System 3MX EPOC is another.
Psion NetBook EPOC32 is another, and very different.
Some Amiga-inspired environment such as AROS or MorphOS.