I hated Unity when I first tried it too. I kept my distance from Ubuntu waiting for them to come to their senses and realize the errors of their ways. This, of course, never happened.
Sometime around the middle of April, I decided to try an experiment and use Ubuntu exclusively for a month. It took a day or two to get used to, but now I actually like most of it. I like being able to type in a letter or two and have the icon for a program I want to start almost instantaneously appear in the HUD. That is much quicker than scrolling through menus. Unity still lacks in a lot of areas, such as customization, but it is a very usable OS and Shuttleworth may actually be on to something.
I also hated Gnome 3 when it came out. This is what drove me from Fedora. I know that I could install other DEs besides Gnome 3, but when they made the switch, I decided it was time to distro hop.
My next experiment is to use Gnome 3 for a whole month. I have Fedora 16 installed. I haven't used it much yet because I haven't had the time to get everything set up yet, such as a Windows VM so that I can use it to watch Netflix. But, as soon as I do, it will be all Gnome 3 for at least 30 days.
Maybe I will try KDE again the same way.