HEHurst - I use Civil 3D 2011 almost exclusively (2009 with a few older projects). I forced myself to get used to the ribbon interface a couple years ago, so it wasn't bad when everything was moved there. The newer versions do seem a little slower with all of the features enabled, but you can...
In the upper left you have icons for NEW, OPEN, SAVE and PRINT. There are also left, right and down arrows. Click on the down arrow. And click on Show Menu Bar.
