At the time they went in a different direction with Gnome 3 it wasn’t so much the direction itself, as the fact they gave people no choice.

One day you were happily using your Gnome 2 desktop, the next you were being told “we’re changing everything, deal with it”. Not “hey we’re forking Gnome 2 to try something new, see if you like it and maybe switch”, no, it was “we’re changing it and you’re gonna like it”.

It’s this “mommy knows best” attitude that’s always pissed people off about Gnome.