But it might annoy hackers a bit. Maybe we should have an option for this in the Expert user level. I'm finding this argument strangely in the reverse. The desktop, a thing which sits behind your windows for convenience, is a pretty logical, not physical thing. On Windows, MacOS, even Irix, it is a special selection of shortcuts.
Home directories fill up.
This is really where the clutter will come from. They open up Abiword and type a letter. They save it, and sure enough the default spot is in their home directory. They save it there, either because they don't know any better, or they have learned enough to know how cool it is that there is a directory specifically for them. Boom, another icon has added to the desktop.