> I was kind of surprised on how many technical people were using stock GNOME 2 rather than the crazy, tricked out environments that Linux used to be known for.
Most 'technical people' I know are busy doing technical work of their own ;-) and would rather have a simple desktop that is good enough and that gets out of the way.
AFAICT people will only bother with 'crazy & tricked stuff' when the mainstream offerings are not good enough for their own individual requirements.