Unity 3D (Why I Am Jumping Ship)

Ubuntu has been my distro of choice for Linux for many years now, but I may be jumping ship with the prevelence of Unity that has replaced GNOME. Unity 3D creates dead zones on my screen where I can't click in that area, and Unity 2D isn't all that appealing.

For the moment I am just using the "Classic Desktop" login which loads up GNOME, but how many more releases will have this option? I am hoping that a new variant of Ubuntu pops up that ships with GNOME as the default again like Kubuntu ships with KDE or Xubuntu ships with XFCE.

Another viable option is to look at another distro based off of Ubuntu, Linux Mint. Been wanting to try it out anyway and this gives me enough reason to make the jump.