GNOME is not a window manager
Wouter blogged a
bit about
how he has problems with using GNOME because it lacks sloopy focus.
Really, what you are complaining about is that metacity doesn’t have
sloppy focus. Then use a different window manager. Please just change
what you have in /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/current
to
E or whatever you prefer. I run a perfectly usable GNOME desktop with
openbox as my WM. Works fine, and I have sloppy focus. I don’t like
flipping desktops with my mouse so I haven’t investigated how to do
that.