I was basing it upon the latest version of Ubuntu.
What exactly is so hard to use about Ubuntu, and what exactly is so unattractive about
this desktop? My first impression of ubuntu, which happened to be the first distro I tried, was the exact opposite: attractive and with immediately intuitive interface conventions. Once you learn the shortcuts and the extra functionality that Gnome has -- such as extra workspaces and one click copy and paste -- it becomes really difficult to see how the Windows GUI is in any way superior. That isn't to say Windows is bad, just that I don't see how Gnome or KDE is in any worse.
No. I dealt with CLIs back in the DOS days but I really have no interest going back to that. They may be more efficient for some tasks but that goes in the exact opposite direction of a user friendly experience.
You seem to be making the argument that user-friendliness is superior to utility. A simple tool, while easier to learn, has fewer uses than a complex tool. The reality is that while GUI's are easier to learn, they are by definition less useful. Rather than telling the computer what to do, the computer presents you with options and you pick among them. Now those options have to be limited, otherwise the GUI quickly becomes cluttered and is no more user friendly than the CLI. You simply can't do as much, as well, and as fast with the GUI as you can with the CLI.
So why the Unix CLI over DOS? Features like job control (if you think multitasking is limited to GUIs, you are wrong), pipelines, input/output redirection, advanced scripting capabilities, work environment customization, online reference, and command completion make the Unix CLI dramatically more powerful than DOS. It's even easier to use in my opinion -- again, Unix is hard to learn but very easy to use. Plus, it's just plain fun.
Again, nearly all serious computing -- whether it be the infrastructure of the internet, financial computing, scientific research, military networks, etc. -- occurs on Unix/Linux and there is a reason for that. For your average office worker who just needs to use Office and send email, Windows is perfectly adequate, and maybe even preferable. But if you really want to access the power of your computer, and really want a tool that complements your own brain when it comes to solving problems, then Unix/Linux, and particularly the Unix/Linux CLI and utilities, is the way to go.