Also, it is indeed getting harder and harder to find (or build) a computer that doesn't come with 3D acceleration.

VERY, VERY hard...

How often do you need to read what's behind your console?

Not read, but seem (its a GUI man!): considering that, i must say: very often :P

Why anyone would want to run a heavy GUI on very low end hardware wasn't explained.

blockquote It still a mystery to me too :P

Yes, people in the third world have less access to free education. They also have less access to food, water, shelter and not getting killed by warlords.

Full agree with that - I'm from a "third world country" (Brazil): less access don't mean no access

Windows has the ability but I haven't heard anyone complain that a "geek" is needed to use Windows.

not to use daily, but to configure/fix simple things is...

Why not just make it so that you can put the bar on whatever side of the screen that you want?

Easiness to configure/use (no "geek" needed at all, everything must just work :P)

They don't - both are opensource: you can verify it.

some people need visual clues

I agree with that: GNOME 3 is full of this - even using several desktops is so simple and intuitive, that my 60+ year old Mom uses it: it's not a geeky thing, anymore...

Generally, concerning gnome3, it's nice for people who navigate with the keyboard.

Quite the contrary: users even switch windows by moving the cursor to the top-left edge of the screen (or clicking on "Activities", or issuing the super key on the keyboard) and clicking on the "window" (there's no visual clues in that? "Visual clues" are all over GNOME 3...) - never seen anyone using Alt-Tab (or Alt-[the key up "Tab"], for switching windows of the same app), besides myself...

She learns how to do things by the positions that things are at on the screen, and if they move, she needs to learn all over again.

She is learning the wrong way! (doesn't she want to barely understand what she's doing?)

... GNOME 3 is a very intuitive UI: my Mom, who never have used a computer before, and is 60+ years old, use a Desktop to do several things now (the Google and Wikipedia integrated in the dash is a killer feature for that kind of user - myself, never used it, but commonly see it been used...)

I'm European, I have no idea what your situation is

Fast Internet connection here is a BigCity-only thing - using presto, 512kbps is enough for a yum update :P