I've been running Gnome 2.4 for several days now. I actually only emerged it to take a quick look at it and see what it was all about (and since it takes no effort to emerge new software like gnome anyhow). How does the new gnome look and work? Well, it's good. Very good. In fact, I'm most likely going to switch from KDE to gnome on a permanent basis.
speed: In the past, speed was the primary reason I avoided gnome. The main offender was how slowly it would redraw windows when I switched desktops (it would probably take it 1/2 a second to fill in windows). Gnome definitely surrendered a lot of speed to KDE. Furtunately for Gnome users, this changed. Gnome 2.4 is very fast--i don't notice the irritating redraw problem than I did before (or it simply isn't slow enough to irritate me) when I switch desktops. Things launch faster and the default applications give you speed where it counts.
browser: Gnome never had a default browser that I liked and I dislike mozilla because it's just too big and clunky. Epiphany, on the other hand, is nearly perfect. It's based off of the same gecko engine that mozilla is but it's very simplified and very stripped down. After spending a lot of time with KDE and knowing that there are millions of options and that I could change all of them I've always felt that I *need* to change the options and customize everything for myself. Why? I actually prefer not to have the option. This browser renders everything very quickly and has fewer bugs than Konqueror (although it loads slower initially).
File manager: Gnome's new file manager is, yet again, the most improved application in the Gnome desktop. While room for improvement always exists, it's no longer the application most in need of improvement (or, it doesn't blatently need fixing). It's fast and responsive, easy to use, and feels very solid. It's definately better than the file managing konqueror.
Bugs: So far the only serious bug i've encountered is due to metacity (the gnome window manager). It seems to crash and burn whenever you run gmplayer. I don't know if this is common, however, so I just use xine.
Conclusion: even if you don't like gnome and never did, gnome 2.4 definately deserves your time. I can now see the appeal. As my old roommate once put it, "if kde is paper than gnome is wet clay"--only, it's no longer that slow =)
