Gnome is basically "we made it, and we really want to feel like we've been creative, and you can't say anything against it."

Granted, I get it for free, but my attention and effort to fight it isn't free, so I only use it when I'm being paid to do so, just like windows.

In my own systems, I've just removed the desktop, I use xmonad, xterm, Emacs and chrome. That covers 95% of what I need.