Who uses gnome? Why would you use Gnome over other linux distros? I'm not asking as a diss I genuinely don't know much about the different preferences ppl have for open source OS.
You probably live a monovendor world for your workstation. Linux world is multivendor from the ground up.
Just a simple example in your language: app panel launcher can be provided by a software with a different origin of windows manager (as in move, resize, tile windows on your desktop). Yeah, kind of like android but this concept comes from thirty years ago.
