Felt uncomfortable with the choice between GNOME Shell and Unity for quite some time, until I finally took the time to seriously test-drive the stuff.
Short: Ifell in love with Unity.
Love the clever use of screen space. Especially how the title- and menubar of maximized windows is merged into the top panel - brilliant. The reduced screen clutter from the new scrollers - enjoyable. Although the new scrollbars still need some UX love - they are hard to hit and such, but I am convinced that issues will be solved. Similar like the problem of resizing frameless windows was solved. Love that I still have workspace handling.
The side panel looks dull on screenshots. Guess the Canonical guys shall post animated gifs or something instead. In life it feels much slicker due its nice animations. Maximized windows let slide out of the screen. Did I mention the nice and useful animations?
Summary: You really shall try GNOME Shell and Unity before talking them down. There are good chances you'll fell in love with them. For me Unity fits well, others will love GNOME Shell. Just grunting without having tried them is lame. Seriously lame.
Next dream: Both projects finally would get together and use compatible specs at least.