What implicit gestures? Everything in the Gnome desktop you can get to by clicking the "Activities" menu at the top-left: search bar, dock, applications button, minimized windows, and 2nd desktop all then become visible.
Granted, the applications button icon is quite nondescript (9 dots). But it's still just 2 clicks of prominent UI elements away.
Same # of clicks as Windows (Start -> Program Files) and MacOS (Finder -> Applications).
What am I missing?.. there is a maximize button in the top-right corner of every window.
EDIT: Oh, I guess these are hidden by default? I don't remember enabling them on my setup but I've been using Gnome a few years now. I agree it would be better if they were visible by default.
Granted, the applications button icon is quite nondescript (9 dots). But it's still just 2 clicks of prominent UI elements away.
Same # of clicks as Windows (Start -> Program Files) and MacOS (Finder -> Applications).