I'll match your quote, "This is what I imagine purgatory to be. A vortex of eternal clicking."
with a quote, "imo, id have just applications and recent with a side arrow to expand either, knocking out the places when expanded."
so in essence it would by default look like the windows start menu, with a (new recent tab), and an expand tab like gshell. There is no way to show all applications without a scroll bar, or more then one click...
thanks for reading guys....