I think this is actually the source of a lot of unfounded hatred for Gnome 3. People aren't always fully aware that Ubuntu is not actually using Gnome Shell, and have instead created their own project, Unity, that just happens to use Gnome for the toolkit. Unity is completely separate from Gnome Shell, and works in quite a different fashion.

I've personally been a huge fan of Gnome 3 and Gnome Shell, and I still think Unity is a terrible, ugly mess. But because many still think that Ubuntu is just using Gnome, they project their distaste for Unity onto Gnome 3 instead of where it belongs...