It's okay for us to differ on any opinion, however your post seemed to be a rant decrying all nay-sayers of the ribbon were just haters of Microsoft and/or change. I'm pretty confident, based on my own experience and conversations, that this is not the case.

Of course /. is representative of IT, in the same way that talking to a group of people at an IT convention is getting representation of the IT world. This is not a scientific poll, of course, but you can't take away the opinions that are expressed here, particularly the ones that are articulated soundly (as opposed to just vitriol).

What IT thinks is better for people is digressing from the subject matter, and I'm sure we all have our opinions on that.

But as for the ribbon, for me, personally, there's so many kinds of wrong with it, I'm amazed that anyone sees it as positive. Given the choice, I'd rather not use it, and this is the path I've gone with.

Cheers

Disagreed (although, you did say "most" people; I just dont' fall into the "most" category). I have to agree with a previous post that said the ribbon is the most unintuitive thing, ever. I gave the ribbon six months of testing, without bias or expectation. I used it with an open mind and found it frustrating so many times, I reverted to using Office 2003. When you say "the ribbon IS a much better menu system," you are obviously speaking from opinion, and that's fine, but don't denigrate others for not having the same opinion as you. For me, it's a matter of fact that the ribbon is a horrible implementation, just as it's a fact for you that it's a good implementation. Not all change is bad, agreed, but not all change is good, either. This qualifies as the latter.

This is a little off topic, however:

> Yes, I agree. Socialized medicine is an abomination. Here in the US, it's law that hospitals treat people regardless of income.

I'm not really into labels, since a label can be carved into very different meanings, however, Americans tend to call Canadian health care socialised. Going with that, to call our medical system an abomination is to show ignorance. The whole point of our medical system is to treat anyone, regardless of income. I'll refrain from going into rant-mode.

You may now consider yourself partially edified.