Through the Looking Glass

What's the fascination of 3D for the desktop?  I'm referring to the Sun announcement of its new Looking Glass desktop.  Of course, it looks intriguing.  I'm not one to scoff at the overuse of CPU power just for the sake of using it, and I have not seen a demonstration live so I'm definitely not in the know.  But what is it about 3D that people think is useful to apply to a desktop metaphor? 

Sure, its all fancy and glitzy, but has it really added anything new, made anything easier?  Does anyone recall all the failed and still failing attempts at making 3D virtual worlds where you walked around 3D spaces, only to saddle up to a 2D portal of your document/app/browser to actually do anything of note?  The rest of it was just brainless avatar scrambling.  If  I'm going to be doing that, at least let my slay a monster or two on my way to the trash bin.  Does the tedium of all this pseudo 'reality' get in the way of actually getting things done?

I'm not claiming the Sun product does any of that.  I'm not sure what it does, except twist your 2D windows into a slant view.  I suppose that's to make it easier to find what you are looking for, kind of a skewed thumbnail of your opened windows.   Frankly, I never have enough desktop real estate to do anything but stack the windows.  Usually I've got the apps maximized so it covers up everything else!

What do you think?

Matt