I couldn't agree more. I keep a huge workspace switcher in the bottom right of my screen, with 10 rows and 3 columns, yes that's 30 desktops, but in they are not all meant to be used, some are just there to separate and create regions. I feel over-crowded if there are no empty desktops.
No need for taskbars or anything like that. And it's perfection, it uses my spacial memory so that I always know exactly _where_ my applications are and can find them in a second and a click. It's exactly like a physical desktop or room, you put things somewhere, and remember where they are.

I vaguely hope that one day a mainstream desktop will "invent" this, and it will finally be adopted by the masses, decades after its actual invention. Not sure how old it is, it was already old when I switched to linux in 97.

Clicking may show intent, but it's slower and annoying, especially when browsing to see what the submenus contain. And these are not the standard gtk menus, doesn't gnome shell use gtk ? Also, it makes long submenus longer, and I don't even want to think about a sub-submenu.
Frankly, why ? I never heard any complaints about the normal submenus, I've already seen a complaint about these new submenus in one of the extension's comment. Is this for touchscreens or just for fun ? The only problem they solve is maybe the submenu appearing on the left rather than the right when there is no room to the right, but that is a very minor issue.

I must have tried it once years ago when something was bugging me. Anyway there is no shortage of pagers, it is pretty much standard in most desktops/wm, at least it used to be, I haven't looked much lately. In the worst case I can write my own pager in perl-gtk.
Screenshot of my current gnome3-fallback pager : http://i.imgur.com/HTUdW.png

Another thought to explain the problem with gnome shell : it seems they removed all the options and replaced them with extensions. Extensions are nice and all, but for basic things it's just stupid and frustrating, and the opposite of user-friendly, an example is the date format, it should be a simple combobox, instead you must search "date" in the extension list, find an extension that simply replace one format by one other, which doesn't even install ... But even if it worked, it replaces a simple thing like a combobox or a checkbox by a complex, long and annoying procedure... Gnome 2 already removed or hid options, some that I liked, but this has reached a ridiculous point.

And I tried a few extensions, why do they use this strange submenus that insert the items into the menu rather than opening on the side, and as a bonus require a click.

About the odd date format, maybe odd is a bit strong, mostly I find it odd to have the weekday without the day of the month. I kind of expect the default date format to have the day of the month and the month. Even without giving the user a text entry to enter a custom date format, there should at least be a choice between a few standard ones, and some people like to see seconds (I don't)..

I replied to myself earlier to mention I found the extensions options button. But really, there should be an easy way (and discoverable) to launch gnome-shell-extension-prefs and maybe also lg. I spent a few minutes trying to look everywhere for a right-click menu, or anything that would present me some options, and I found nothing, it's very frustrating.

The whole "installed extensions" page is neat in a way, but very confusing, other than not being a place I would ever look, it makes it look like it is some kind of cloud thing, and even makes you wonder if gnome.org does know about your installed extensions, I guess not, but only because I trust you enough not to do such a thing.

And again I want to insist on how annoying is it to switch workspace with the mouse, go to top left corner, then go to the pager all the way to the right. My immediate idea would be a hot spot in the lower or top right corner to make the pager appear. I personally like to see it permanently but it does take up some space, a hot spot would make it almost as good. I honestly think that a 2-dimentional pager with fixed workspaces is the best way to handle a desktop and that eventually people are bound to realize that and to re-invent it. It's the best way to make use of our spacial memory, I have multiple browser windows and terminals opened, but I know which one are which, even though they only show an icon, because I remember where I put them, I can group things spatially like I would with real papers on a real desktop.
At the moment I have over 30 windows opened (only 5 of them are unique apps, the rest are terminals, browsers, editors), and I can go to any of given window in about 1 second, I can't imagine handling them any other way.

Ok, I found the option dialogs for the extensions : in the remote gnome.org web page !! Really ? That's not even the last place I would look, I would never look there, I stumbled on it. I really can't express how wrong and un-intuitive this whole "installed extensions" page is, and why the hell there is not an equivalent accessible from a menu somwhere (if there is one is well hidden) inside the actual desktop.
Addendum to my list :
- I want to see my apps in pager not with a miniature of the window, but with a box containing an icon, like gnome2 did. And I don't need to see 27 mini desktop backgrounds, yes I know, it's up to the extension dev, but for me the pager is by far the most important thing in a desktop. I feel like wanting to add wheels to a submarine because I need a car.

Thank you. So I did a quick test :
- After looking everywhere for options (and feeling very helpless without even an option dialog or right-click menu), it turns out you can configure the number of rows/columns in the js file, how modern :(
- Someone really have to explain to me why I must go all the way to the left to make the workspaces appear all the way to the right, I would guess there is an extension for that, but come on...
- I like to keep my 3x9 pager in big (256 pixels width) in the bottom right of my screen (I've got a wide screen), doesn't seem possible currently
- no options that I can see to configure the date format on top of the screen :( (and the default format is rather strange)
- no error displayed when somehow (=most of the time) one extension doesn't install/work, and it takes a while to realize the place to look what extensions are installed are on a remote website, that is insane and so not intuitive, so does that mean you can't check/remove extension without internet ? (without fiddling around, it is supposed to be a user-friendly desktop). Ok, the system monitor did display an error, but it is the only one of the 3 cpu extensions I tried that did show up in the installed extensions list !

So in conclusion, it really feels like I'm fighting the system rather than using it. I'm 100% happy with what I had before (since fvwm2), don't see the use for any of the new stuff. And the configuring of gnome3 seems to me less user-friendly than the fvwm2 I used to use way back then (that required editing files), come on, it's 2012.
Thanks but no, thanks.

Because they can't use gnome the various ways they used to. That kind of make people angry when you replace what they knew and love with something that is for many inferior.
For example I use a 2-dimentional pager to switch between my desktops (3x9 desktops), that is the best way to use a desktop with more than a few apps running, that kind of pager is easy, it has existed since long before gnome 1 (I know, I've learned to use it back then in fvwm2). But now the gnome 3 devs don't want to give users the option to use this. Well so long gnome, it's been a nice ride, but I need a useable desktop.

Find me a 2 dimentional pager with a fixed number of desktops (like 3x9), and I might use gnome3, until then, I'll go elsewhere...

I like wikileaks, but Assange is a jerk, working with RussiaToday and pretending to fight for the truth, yeah right :(