I hear you. But, at least you are aware that the clock is ticking. You would
be surprised that some people just let it run out and then wonder why
updates stop.

Yeah, I like the panel at the top, too. I switch KDE and XFCE to the top
and run a dock at the bottom. Some distros like Mint run one panel at the
bottom in GNOME. But everything can be changed in just about any desktop
environment. Finally Ubuntu is getting rid of the bottom panel in 11.04. It
took them long enough. It is the first thing that I do in GNOME, especially
on my netbook which has limited screen size.

You can still install GNOME in 11.04, but it comes with Unity by default.
Then you switch at login to GNOME. However, that won't last forever because
GNOME Shell will replace GNOME 2.x which is what Ubuntu uses now. That has a
bar at the top, but a side menu and no panel at the bottom similar to Unity.