That lasts a month or two.

They don't notice they're more productive later. "Oh, it was awful." And they're doing whizzier things faster than before.

Often, people just hate change.

Strongly disagree. I am far less productive using the ribbon interface, and have been for years. I have never "gotten used to it."

Oh, come on. You seriously don't mean that. If you are you can't be using it much.

It's that hard to believe that I think one of their latest innovations sucks? I use Excel on a regular basis for simple regression analyses and data shuffling.

>>Often, people just hate change.

No, people hate sudden change. When it comes to more gradual change, such as the user interface progression from XP to Vista and then to Win 7, it is totally fine. But going from Win 7 to Win 8? Not so much. (Yes, Win 8 will have an old-style UI option, but that's not the point.)

Any interface change is a kick in the face to people who have been heavy users of the software. That does not mean that every change is for the worse.