I have give up with Gnome since Gnome 3, even if I try it time to time. But the completely wrong usability concept seem to be immutable is this project.
I use Xfce instead with a quick configuration that "focus follow mouse without delay", "no auto raise window or on click", a 8x8 virtual desktop grid, a lot of useful information on the top bar, and a lot of tabs and launchers on the bottom bar. Very simple, fast and productive.
I use the right Ctrl + arrows keyboard shortcut to navigate the desktop gride (add right shift to move the active window). This allow to do most of the navigate actions with just one hand. Once you try this, you can't go back to the shortcut that require two hands to navigate. Peoples are usually puzzle when looking at how fast I can switch between a lot of well organized desktops.