What's supposed to replace menus?

[Gerhard Magnus]

As a newcomer to Ubuntu 11.10 (from Fedora 14, the last of its line to 
run without problems) I'm still trying to adjust to the Unity desktop. 
(By the way, is it correct to call Unity a desktop, equivalent to the 
old Big Two of Gnome and KDE?) I'm getting more comfortable working with 
that Mac-like bar at the top of my screen and have installed a 
familiar-looking taskbar (Panel Tint2) at the bottom so I can easily 
switch between windows. But the complete absence of menus (except for 
the short one I get clicking on the upper righthand corner) has me 
wondering if I'm missing some basic difference between old and new 
desktops; maybe not as big as a paradigm shift, but still something 
different about how this sort of interface is supposed to work. Is using 
some customized version of the panel on the left, or else clicking on 
the "Dash" button and then typing at least part of the program name 
supposed to replace familiar menus like "Applications", "Places", and 
"System"? What was the motivation here for getting rid of menus? I can 
live without them, but I'd sure like to know why they left in the first 
place!