Hell, I even switched to Windows 7 for a while, back when Fedora came only with Gnome3. It didn't help, that at the time the Linux kernel also had some general problems with power consumption.
By now, Gnome 3 is actually quite good, but still uses more power than MATE.
Cinnamon is slow and buggy as hell. Unity is just slow.
XFCE has become quite good, but still can't handle docking (or un/plugging an external monitor) correctly. KDE neither (plus I don't like the IMHO horrible interface).
So even after many years and years, Gnome2/MATE is still - IMHO - the best desktop in Linuxland (and I also like it more than Windows 7, and a lot more than Mac OS; back in the day I switched from Mac OS 10.4 to Ubuntu). It's not about classic - it's about functionality, stability, performance, configurability. But mostly that it just works and does everything the way you expect.
Interesting that you liked the old Ubuntu colors. I liked them much better than the current ones, but still considered them quite ugly compared to the typical blue desktops of Windows, Mac OS or Fedora.
For those that really prefer Gnome 2 there is always CentOS/Springdale Linux/Scientific Linux/Oracle Linux version 6.x. Most projects providing support until 2020.
Be prepared for the usual Enterprise Linux repository waggle dance (multiple repositories required for a reasonable range of software and media codecs). But it works rather well.
By now, Gnome 3 is actually quite good, but still uses more power than MATE.
Cinnamon is slow and buggy as hell. Unity is just slow.
XFCE has become quite good, but still can't handle docking (or un/plugging an external monitor) correctly. KDE neither (plus I don't like the IMHO horrible interface).
So even after many years and years, Gnome2/MATE is still - IMHO - the best desktop in Linuxland (and I also like it more than Windows 7, and a lot more than Mac OS; back in the day I switched from Mac OS 10.4 to Ubuntu). It's not about classic - it's about functionality, stability, performance, configurability. But mostly that it just works and does everything the way you expect.
Interesting that you liked the old Ubuntu colors. I liked them much better than the current ones, but still considered them quite ugly compared to the typical blue desktops of Windows, Mac OS or Fedora.