I should have added a third reason no major upgrade has occurred: Because you can easily change the way the GUI looks on your own, either through downloadable theme packages (available at websites like gnome-look.org, which I would suggest you take a good look at before criticizing Ubuntu’s looks), or by switching to a different window manager. Instead of GNOME, you could use KDE (which looks more like Windows XP). Or if you wanted to slim things up, you can use XFCE or IceWM, or even Fluxbox if you really want to trim your resource usage down.

I’m not disappointed about the fact that there won’t be a major upgrade to the default GUI’s because I’m quite happy with the current one, which is already very customizable and easy to use. It is by no definition an “eye sore”. For example, simply adding a GTK theme and Cairo Dock to your system, and you can make the computer look exactly like a Mac (if you are so inclined). I disagree with you on user-friendliness vs. stability. Stability is #1, always. Because in the world of computers, downtime = mucho dinero. Eye candy can take a back seat and like it.

And seriously, Compiz blows every other major operating system’s eye candy/window management out of the water, and it can be enabled and configured by a 7 year old. It doesn’t take a programmer to make Ubuntu look slick and sexy.

My response to that is. If those are the real reasons for not having a better looking Ubuntu, then Ubuntu is NOT geared towards the regular people. For ubuntu to become mainstream, user-friendliness is just as important as stability! If that is not true, than Ubuntu’s philosophy is to build an OS for ‘programmers’ and ‘computer experts’, not the average guy. BUT, wait, didn’t Mark Shuttleworth said that Ubuntu should be competing with Mac to actually become a mainstream OS? Did he just say that or did he mean it?

Xorg 7.3 already did that.