I agree with you. In fact before I discovered that feature on a Mac I was absolutely baffled trying to figure out how people used Macs for real work.
On the other hand, I do a decent amount of desktop support in my job and I have yet to find a user who knew it was possible to hit the Windows key and start typing. There's a huge difference in usage patterns between the "power users" and "everyone else".
First thing that I did when I got a mac was drag the applications folder to the dock and make it a list view. Instant start (menu on the side of the screen. I still use it from time to time, sometimes you just need to see the app icon. But command + space changed the way I compute. I understand why type searching was given focus in Unity and now Win 8.
The Dock. Is it baffling how people can do real work via the Dock? I myself use QuickSilver, but I don't ponder over how people do real work without it.
On the other hand, I do a decent amount of desktop support in my job and I have yet to find a user who knew it was possible to hit the Windows key and start typing. There's a huge difference in usage patterns between the "power users" and "everyone else".