BoomAM said:
Do you actually understand the difference between X and XGL? The desktop is being rendered on the graphics card instead of the processor, and each window is a seperate plane with a texture. This allows for a much smoother and more powerful desktop even if you don't use any effects, because it offloads the work to the GPU. It's a much more sensible way of doing things than the X damage extensions and the usually broken composite extension.
Yes, most people have the water and wobbly effects off, they are simply used to showcase the potential for the technology. I'm sure new features will be invented that had never been thought of before. Here's a nice one you may not know about, if an app stops responding, compiz will grey the windows out. It's little touches like that, that make a really nice desktop. If you think about X or windows at the moment, if an app stops responding you get horrible graphical effects when other things are moved over.
Obviously XGL is in the early stages. I don't use it other than occasionally to see what's new, because compiz is too simple a window manager for my liking, but once other WMs support XGL it will be a great technology, certainly not pointless.