I realize there is a classic mode, but that's being jettisoned in 11.10. I've tried classic mode, and all it does is add an extra click to get to everything.
And when I said "the global menu is not always active" I should have said "not always visible". Most apps I played with use the global menu, but unless you spasmodically throw your cursor around the screen and accidentally hover over the panel you would never know there is a global menu in the first place.
For the record, I like the global menu on the Mac. The active window title and menu are always visible. The window title is bold and the text is never cut off or obscured by the menu. The apple menu is always in the top-left and has all the system-related commands I need. The window title itself is always a menu that has the preferences for that app and any commands related to app window management. Intuitive and, most importantly, *consistent*.
If you want to save real estate and truly target mobile devices, you need to be revolutionary, not evolutionary. Consider:
1. Why do apps even need menus? Can we achieve the same level of functionality without cascading drop down menus? The mobile industry has shown that this is possible. We just need to re-think the application interfaces.
2. What good is that silly ubuntu icon in the top left? This seems to be a non-functional throwback to the concept of a "Start" menu. It's like the apple menu, but it doesn't actually do anything useful. I can get to the dash by clicking on the icons in the launcher, pushing the super key, or going to the top-left corner. It's a waste of space that could be used for displaying the active window title so it doesn't have to be cut off by the menu.
3. Why can't the launcher be some kind of overlay so it doesn't have to fight with the other windows for real estate, sliding in and out depending on state of the active windows? For that matter, does the panel need to always be visible? Can't that be part of the overlay?
Gnome 3 did a better job with these issues, I think. I'm hoping Unity will end up being a New Coke / Coke Classic kind of thing to make people ecstatic to switch to Gnome 3 in 11.10.