Gnome has been around, what, 10 years? If they are randomly changing behavior just because someone feeling it would be 'better', it indicates either nobody is using Gnome, or they don't care if anyone has been using Gnome. I don't see either Mac or Windows making these sorts of minor, workflow-breaking changes and just telling people to suck it up.
The changes are not "random", just because you don't know about the thoughts and testing that went into them.
Mac made a huge all-breaking change with Mac OS X. That only occurs every few years, but as you say, Gnome 2 is ten years old. Then Lion introduced all kinds of workflow-breaking changes, like the automatic spelling correction, the "overview mode" or whatever it's called, the reversed scrolling. And you have to suck it up that much more on Mac OS, because there's just no way to install a different version of the interface.
Two of those examples (spelling correction and reversed scrolling) are user configurable settings. Mission control I'd say is less of a workflow breaking change and more of the natural evolution of exposé & spaces.
I agree. I do find it odd that they are changing things in one direction rather than making it optional or spinning off another project. Personally, I look forward to change even now, since computers are far from perfect.
