Comment I Love all of them, I hate most of them. (Score 1) 371
First, you are not talking about operating systems but graphical user interfaces.
But to the point.
My personal opinion is that I love OS X look and simplicity. And I love(d) GNOME 2.x simplicity and pastel look.
But I can not stand neither of them in my computer as I want to do more than copy few files from USB-stick to desktop and use WWW-browser or listen music and watch videos.
(For me, even moving some files with Finder is pain in the ass unless they are right front of me.)
I want to love Metro (or what other name MS will choose for it, hopefully as good as "Metro") as it is what Unix is about, information front of you. Metro is doing something what I dreamed and designed 15 years ago (I even have hundreds of designs stored in closet), but still it is doing it wrong way, by disturbing user, by hiding elements, functions and making simple things too complex (Like easy way to open directory in Finder by simply pressing enter on it when browsing with arrow keys).
So far, only GUI what pleases me on desktop/laptop use is KDE. And especially KDE4 started to do it great.
The customization is the key. Please, just give user a pure and clear GUI and then easy way to _add_ features what they want (contrary to your saying, you want to _remove_ things, I think it should be that people can "opt-in" just by adding features what they need.) and then get the GUI look and work as they need and want, not as one designed in company sees it should work (they can do the very basic usability things, like you can not so easily by mistake delete file or rename directory etc).
But when it comes to tablet, smartphone and even netbook usage, I just love Android 4.0 on them. The style, it is very informative and widgets gives the possibility to have exactly the wanted specific information right under your finger with interactive function (what Live Tiles do not offer at all) and otherwise just the apps with the oldest and purest human understandable way. If you want to nail something, you take hammer and nail and you just hit it where wanted. If you want to cut something, you take saw and you just use it.
The original Unix idea, one tool for one task. It is just so wise and awesome, why even command line interface is so awesome when compared to GUI in many basic cases (like copying files, renaming, moving, archiving, emailing, encrypting etc).
Last few years the trend has been that files need to be queried trough search and automatic filtering systems. Like the computer would know right away what you need and want (I am pointing my finger to you KDE community with activities!). Just give very simple and fast search for files, like Google search web pages (as it is said, it is silly that we can find pages from Internet faster than files from others computer).
I love organized file hierarchic in manner where others can understand easily what is in directories and what file is about by its name.
But when it comes to actually quickly choose and group bunch of files and do something complex to them graphically, there seems not to be better tool than Automator in OS X (unless you count scripting for shell in all Unix systems).
So what Microsoft has done right? They made the GUI touchable with big enough buttons (tiles) what was reason why Windows 7 SUCKED for any tablet computer (I have used 27" touchscreen with Windows 7 and it just was terrible two weeks). And that they got the idea that information should be easy to get presented in wanted form.
BUT.....
Metro SUCKS!
Android is getting again something much better. Chameleon is coming launcher for Android (tablets only?) http://chameleon.teknision.com/ and it is exactly having what I have found most oldery (and young) people to need. To have information at one glance available for them, depending their task, location or time (one awesome app for Android is the Tasker https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm).
Microsoft tried that with Metro, but it does not work well on small screens (smartphones) as you need to scroll long list trough and it doesn't have "pages" like Android launchers can offer. And on bigger displays it is again terrible as everything looks exactly the same.
I am fan of LCARS style what was in Star Trek. As it actually can be used to make logical GUI for people. Just rip off all fancy graphics and use very basic colors (colors specify what type function is) and it is connected to functions directly with lines. And then the actual data is text only (pure text files, are so awesome even today!) and more complex data what can not be presented in text, is audio, 3D model, photos or videos.
That is what I expected from Metro. But again, I can make more like it with KDE and I can do it with Android.
I love Metro at first glance, but I hate almost everything in it, more than with OS X or GNOME (2.x) as more complex I need (have GTalk same time open and web browser, or video call and word or video player...), more complex it comes to user.
So yeah, simple is good, but oversimple is just terrible. So give very sane and simple default, but lots of possibilities to customize everything as how user needs and wants.
Winners are, KDE and Android because customization possibilities.
I would like to install Windows 8 to every computer, but I don't do it because after a 15 min crush feelings, the illusion is lost and moment is gone and all what I could hope is how I get KDE or Android back.