Geeks fall all over themselves to condemn GNOME to the depths of hell for switching Nautilus to be spatial by default, and also fall all over themselves to switch to the Mac, which brought spatial file managers into the mainstream.
\r\n\r\nAnd FWIW, most "average users" I've shown spatial Nautilus to have been a little bit reluctant at first, but then realized that for many common file-management tasks, spatial mode is extremely useful. It's only geeks with a near-autistic aversion to change who I've seen kickin up a huge ruckus about it.
\r\n\r\nAlso, it's kind of odd to see other people in this thread claiming that things are unusable unless they're configurable, and then have you come along and claim that putting an option in a preferences dialog increases difficulty.