I've been using this feature for, let's see... about 16 years, and it's not just an ingrained habit, it's actually quite useful. Sooner or later it looks like I'm going to have to sit down and fiddle with the alternatives to Gnome.
I thought same until I used other systems (mainly OS X and some Windows 7) for around 2 years. I've been using Linux full time again about the past 2 months and now realize it's more of a pain in the ass than it's usually worth.
It's kind of puerile, but for whatever reason this gave me a good laugh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6282043