Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ribbon bar made it more usable? I just found it annoying. Word 2003 still seems like the best form factor to me.
It did. I couldn't find anything before the ribbon bar, frankly, and using tools took significantly more time because I had to search for them in overly long menus, or even submenus. Now they're mostly laid out directly in front of me, logically and visually ordered. I don't feel that menus are a good UI to anything. It would seem that most UX people now agree with me, as traditional menu bars have been de-emphasised…
For anyone for who changes do just that, check this out, which I think is the most impressive example of data-driven UI design ever documented even remotely this well: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/table-of-...
I love the ribbon. If you don't, try one of two things. One, try double-clicking on one of the headers - it'll make the ribbon hide unless you click it. This makes it effectively work like the old menus, except more horizontal and graphical instead of vertical.
The second is to scroll your mouse wheel while hovering over the ribbon.