I don't have a study that I can use as an appeal to authority, so you'll just have to contend with the argument on the basis of it's internal consistency and how much you agree with the premises :)

For what it's worth, I don't use the gnome app drawer either. I exclusively use the dock + search to launch applications, so in my workflow both are actually pointless. I would still argue that opening the app drawer to reach your application shortcuts is easier and more consistent than resizing/minimizing windows to un-obstruct the desktop until you can point and click to launch an application. But I suppose managing folders on your desktop could be viewed as a plus? I'm not sure if GNOME's app menu supports that.

>KDE doesn't let you do it either My bad. I'm not too familiar with KDE.