That does sound like an improvement: in combination with the "Show Desktop" keyboard shortcut it will give quicker access to widgets than going through the clunky notification centre. And it will mean the widgets stay in one place and don't move around because some tiresome notifications got piled up above it.

However, it still doesn't sound as good as the old Dashboard, where widgets effectively got their own desktop (available for quick access at any time with a single keypress or touchpad gesture). This would also be more consistent with iOS, where you can just swipe to the left-most home screen to see a dashboard of widgets.

I like to maintain a "clean desktop" look so not sure if I love the idea of cluttering it up with widgets, but I'll give it a try!