What was there before...
...was a confusing mess.
I can see we've gone circular here, so I'll not beat the bloody horse stain too much more.
The bottom line is that GNOME is now more usable by regular users than it was before. Regular users (i.e. !you and people like you) don't want to configure stuff. At all. Ever. They want to write the memo, send the email, make the document and then go the hell home. Or they want to print the photo, buy junk on eBay, send the email, look at the funny video, and go the hell out to the pub.
Configuring windows into groups with a programmable window manager is, oddly enough, not on these users' radar.
KDE has chosen to plough a different furrow, and that Kontrol Kentre will come back to bite them in the bum, mark my words. It's already like the elephant in the boardroom.
Peter
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