Ubuntu 12.04 to replace traditional menus with new HUD

You obviously know next to 0 about FLOSS development.

Please define how "time and effort" can be diverted from a new UI and instead "spent on stability"? Is this based on the assumption on your part that 'buntu is entirely developed by a single team of people? Some of which are pulled from other "projects" and moved to another to the detriment of those others? canonical ltd develop unity, the hud, software center and a few other bits and pieces, they don't develop the rest of the software (90% plus of the distro) - they simply /package/ it...

Was a moderately familiar user of 10.04 LTS (meaning, I could use Synaptic, compile code, but not write programs myself). Tried 1.04. Horrid. If I don't know what something is already, where the heck is it, and how do I get to it? Why can't I fallo back to an ordinary menu, if I wish? (I tried various strategems; the new interface can be slightly customized, but generally it's take it or leave it). I cannot think of anything the new interface does for me.

Remember the Star Trek movie in which they go back in time to San Francisco, and are confronted with an our-generation computer that has a mouse? At first Kirk tries voice commands. Doesn't work. Then he thinks the mouse is a microphone for issuing voice commands. Doesn't work. It's like that, but in reverse.

I really would like to use Linux (Ubuntu) and have finally found a replacement for Quicken, MoneyDance. Was still trying to find a replacement for Paperport. Just installed Ubuntu 12.4 and this was the final straw for all the effort I have put into attempting to convert. The complete omission of drop down menus with no option to revert is more like what you would expect from the dictators Microsoft and Apple. Time to remove the dual boot and dedicate the entire hard drive to Win Xp.