How much should it look like Windows?

Increasingly, RHEL (and others) try to look more like MS Windows.  I hope there can be discussion here of how far RedHat should go or not go in this direction.

My own view is that if I wanted my screen to look like Windows, I would run Windows.  My suggestions to the RHEL 7 developers are these:  At install time (or first login for a new user) provide an option for a simple windowing environment vs. a fuller one.  In particular, an environment with no nautilus, a plain colored background, a terminal-opener icon and desktop switcher already installed on the panel, no PLACES on the main menu, but a shutdown and a sleep option on the logoff menu like RedHat 4 always had, etc.  And PLEASE allow the user to edit the main menu.  At present (in 5 and I think 6) there is an applet to allow menu editing, but you can't change anything on the main menu. Provide a way for users to specify where inserted devices (dvd, usbdisk, usb printers) will be mounted--I want cds at /cdrom, not /media/whatever--editing udev rules is too esoteric for ordinary users.  Keep evolution, not thunderbird (or give the choice) as mail client.  From what I have heard of gnome 3.0, it is not what I would want either, so please give a choice in that area also.

(I am a scientist, using RHEL on my desktop/laptop within a small lab network.)

George Reeke