It's the opposite, insulted WHEN using Gnome. Not just by the design but by the devs. In this case it probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been a long time user (Gnome 3 from Gnome 2). I expect a new version of something to be better than the old or at least equally capable. Hopefully this metaphor makes sense:
They came out with a new tomato. I'd used tomatoes for years in pizza sauce, kebabs, chili, and BBQ sauce; it was the core of my day to day kitchen life. To me the new one was a green bell pepper they called a tomato. I could tell it was the same family, it had seeds, a skin, and an outer fleshy layer, but no juice and wasn't sweet, just bitter. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate green bell peppers, and they do work to add some in my chili and kebabs. But my sauces were not what I wanted. I could've sworn I heard the pepper say something about my balls when I was trying to make a pizza sauce out of it. I know it laughed at me and started on fire when I added some liquid smoke for my BBQ sauce.
I went back to the grocery store to get old style tomatoes and was told I could only get them from last year's harvest. All that was left on the shelf was starting to rot already. Also they told me I was an idiot for wanting an old style tomato; these are way tastier and who wants pizza anyway? I decided I'd settle for the red bell pepper option a lot of other people wanted (cause green peppers are just red ones that aren't ripe yet) they said grow your own or use a red onion from these KDE growers if you hate us so much. Eventually someone started growing tomatoes again (MATE) and someone made a red pepper (Cinnamon). I've adapted my recipes for red peppers now. It's not the same but it works.
Using Gnome 3 upon first release would not act in ways I considered sane. There was no easy way to fix it. Gnome devs were recalcitrant to the rabble roused and insisted their way was better and fuck you if you don't like it. Gnome software did nothing to make the transition less painful and was just familiar enough that it felt like it was laughing at me every time it'd take me 10 minutes to do something that used to take 2 seconds. Eventually some options appeared deep inside gconf, but too late, not enough, and too much effort to use, so I left. In my most recent experience, when my expectations are off it often makes more sense or there's enough google results to figure it out quickly. Seems to be more options too. I don't love it, I just dislike it less and I'm sure others haven't given it another chance (why should they?)
tl;dr: Try making pizza sauce out of red peppers, olive oil, basil, oregano and garlic. I bet it's awesome. (seriously let me know if you try it, don't forget to add salt)