I tried out GNOME 40 today.
I had already read about it online, with quite a few articles suggesting that it was going into the wrong direction UI-wise. One common complaint was that it seemed more touch-oriented and less efficient to use with a mouse.
After trying it out, I am pleasantly surprised. I find I am quite happy with the gesture-based input paradigm that GNOME 40 is built around. In particular, navigating between the activity overview and the main desktop has become significantly quicker for me.
Perhaps my fondness of the MacBook’s way of treating its trackpad as a first-class input device has rubbed off on me and I am now attuned to it. What is surprising, however, is that notwithstanding the substantial amount of time I have spent in macOS, I seem to prefer GNOME’s implemention over the Mac’s. It feels, to me, even more efficient and to the point.