@LB: check out virtual desktop. Then ask yourself how do you manage to live without that.
Having more than a few windows open makes me feel claustrophobic, having a few windows open in multiple environments feels worse. You people are crazy.
I have only one window per workspace. Two monitors though and one screen per monitor. Thus, I see only two windows at a time, but can switch to different workspace for unrelated taks at any time.
XFCE. Haven't bothered to check out anything else. XFCE did replace FVWM2. I might have had TWM in the very beginning. Technically, I don't use most DM features, WM (Window Manager) features suffice.
I'm running Cinnamon 1.6 with 2 monitors. My second video card is older so I run the light-weight MATE when using 3 monitors. I like the "feel" of Cinnamon much more.
I was running just Compiz for a while and liked it for the first 2 hours until I found out how buggy it was.
On Ubuntu I use gnome 3, on Arch I use most of the components of LXDE, but I'm trying to find a replacement for Pcmanfm. I'm currently trying Spacefm and it seems the best solution so far.
1st PC = Windows7 x64 with 3 monitors (2 Video Cards with total of 3GPUs).
2nd PC = OpenSuSe KDE (remote desktop and SSH from Windows PC)
3rd PC = Windows7 x64 (laptop)
I use Eclipse and GCC on all of them for C++
Mostly I stick with Windows because I don't have to spend hours configuring it or running around using stupid tools on the command line to setup things up. I prefer to download something with a GUI so I can actually get back to working
I've come to dislike Gnome; pity, it was an old favorite. What the hell's going on with Gnome 3? And why drop BSD support because you can't be bothered to deal with the dbus issue?
I've lived with XFCE4 for some time now, but I've settled on KDE4. Why? It just works.
And my pet hate? Windows 7, but that's probably because I've been shielded from Windows 8. I mean, what was wrong with XP's interface?
Windows 7 is good enough for me. Not being able to re-arrange windows from the same process is a minor annoyance, but everything else is more than I ever use. Not that my screen is large enough to properly utilize "windows" anyway. Those of you with multiple monitors make me jealous :p