forward thinking about the UI

[Samuel Thurston, III]

One of the things that continually bothers me about both gnome and kde
is that they both strongly mimic an established paradigm in UI design.
 Supporters of either project will argue that a) familiarity makes
adoption less traumatic for new users, and b) that there are many
differences, primarily configurability, so you're free to rearrange
things as you will.

I do exactly that: I've disabled the bottom default task bar in gnome
and replaced it with AWN and I am on the brink of disabling the top
bar and replacing it with a combination of gnome do and gdesklets or
screenlets.

But I can't shake the feeling that the whole idea of rectangular
windows with a "handle" at the top and virtual desktops and all of
that is very antiquated.  I very much like my cubed desktop that
deforms into a cylinder when working with it...

but what if instead a cylinder it was a sphere, and instead of having
discrete workspaces it had configurable "placemarks" on it that you
could jump to with keyboard shortcuts?

There's one idea anyway.

Are there existing projects or even just concepts that eschew the old
desktop paradigm for something fresh?  Or even that handle that old
paradigm in a fresh way?

Do any of you have wild and crazy ideas about how window management
might be done differently?