New default version of Ubuntu basic function UI problems...

You're not able to restore a maximized window to its unmaximized state? That certainly is a problem...but it is not a limitation inherent to Unity, and I've never heard of anybody else experiencing it. This is accomplished by clicking the same button you clicked to maximize the window (this button will now be near the upper-left corner of the screen, since the window takes up the whole screen now, and it's always near the upper-left corner of the window). If you don't see this button when you maximize a window, that's very strange--please take a full-screen screenshot, post it on the web (for example, you could use http://postimage.org), and post its URL here.

To access your menus using the mouse, just move the mouse pointer up to where they should be, and they will immediately appear. In Unity, the top bar shows the name of an application when the mouse is not over it, and then when the mouse goes over it, it becomes the menu bar. Therefore, in effect, accessing menus in Unity is done *precisely* the same was as in a Classic Desktop. Is this not working for you?

"I spent about 4 hours trying to get so I could get these features back, but I couldnt."

Can you describe the steps you took? If it turns out that you are actually suffering from a bug that prevents that functionality from working (since that function most certainly *is* part of Unity), it would be useful to know what you had done already, so that your time is not wasted being advised to do things you had already done.

"One last thing, the main menu bar is on the left side of the screen - well what if I dont want it there? Well as of current I dont have a choice.... its on the left side, and that is the way it is. There is no setting to adjust this so I can move it else where. I wanted to move it back down to the bottom of the screen, but too bad!!"

Yeah, that is pretty bad. That users are prohibited from moving it is considered a feature rather than a bug (see http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/ubuntu-unity-launcher-wont-be-moveable and bug 668415). While I agree with Mark Shuttleworth that most users are best served by having it on the left side, I don't think *all* users are, and even if all users were, I don't think that would justify it being unchangeable (the placement of the launcher is not a deeply technical question and everyday users are perfectly capable of understanding the issues involved).

Mark Shuttleworth has pointed out quite correctly that Unity, like Ubuntu as a whole, is free open source software, so people are free to make and distribute modifications (https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/668415/comments/17). Perhaps someone will get around to releasing a modified version of unity in a PPA, so that users who want to relocate the launcher will be able to do so.

There is one other point to be made here, though, which is that the Unity launcher is not equivalent to the bottom panel (i.e., "menu bar") in a classic desktop. It is more similar to the Dock in a Mac OS X system. It doesn't show entries for separate windows at all, and it contains launchers for applications that aren't currently running as well as icons for applications that are. So the issue is not that it cannot be moved "back down" to the bottom of the screen--the Unity launcher has never been anywhere but the left side of the screen, for as long as it has existed.