GNOME Shell has always been able to "have two applications at the same time
onscreen so you can copy things from one to another". In fact, you can have
the window take the whole left or right half of the screen. With the mouse
(drag the window to the desired side) or with a keyboard shortcuts. GNOME 2
could not do that. And maximizing windows by dragging to to the top is much
easier than clicking on a small button in its corner. And of course, there
still is a keyboard shortcut for that.
I actually find GNOME far more efficient for users who use the keyboard (like
me): you can type the Super key (the Windows key on most keyboards), the
first letters of an application to switch to or to open and [Enter]. That is
far more effecient than a window list and a menu. You can switch between
application (the classical Alt+Tab and Alt+Shift+Tab) but also between the
windows of the current application (Alt+Key above Tab). And keyboard
shortcuts are still there (e.g., to move between workspaces or to move
windows across workspaces) and custom shortcuts can still be defined.
Finally, GNOME Shell has always had http://extensions.gnome.org for any
customization, including to turn GNOME Shell to a classical desktop, like
Trisquel 7 does. GNOME 2's interface was not extensible.
I am proud not to have your Skype issues. Nobody should use that! Ever!
