I can't stand Gnome. I don't like how they dumped the desktop or the app menu, or really most of their decisions lately. From what I've seen they're trying to cater to some amorphous "new user" instead of just creating a good desktop environment. What is this "new user"? Nobody knows! Well, other than the Gnome developers, I guess. The sad thing is that attempting to cater to "new users" is just... Entirely unnecessary: you can put someone who's never used Linux in their entire lives in front of an XFCE desktop environment and they'll most likely figure it out quite quickly with little help from you. I think that this similarly applies to Mate or KDE as well.
My dislike with Gnome comes from the fact that I need extensions for what I would consider primitive things. Like an app menu instead of the dashboard/app launcher thing they have going. Or the fact that features like minimize are just... Gone. And when you complain, your just either told to do it some very counterintuitive way or to go get an extension. I would get an extension for something truly unique or something that extends the environment far beyond what anyone would expect, but an extension just to minimize a window? Nah, no thanks.