But it's not a cashew anymore. It's a hamburger!
The article says "it drives tweakers nuts because it’s the one unchanging thing on the desktop. There have been heavy debates on how to hide it, but for the interim it’s here to stay." Really? You get the same thing by right-clicking (or long press on a touchscreen, I imagine) on the desktop. Having an omnipresent widget is redundant and annoys people who don't need it.
Except many inexperienced users (and some experienced yet lazy users who never take the time to learn their computer, I've noticed) don't know or often forget about right-clicking. So when you throw a bunch of random people who have never seen KDE before and test their proficiency with the desktop, of course they're going to overlook right-click menu and whine about needing a special widget for customization. But that's how UI design is these days: conceding to the lowest common denominator. Designers are striving for a utopian interface that can be used without any training or adjustment period. Yet it's a myth. It's impossible to make a computer that can be used without instruction. Maybe if half as much time was spent writing documentation as is spent twiddling with icon colors users would have a resource where they could learn how to use KDE. Then you could build a desktop that doesn't feel like it's in novice mode all the time.
Except documentation isn't as sexy as screenshots and Google-ripoff icons.
Addendum: "Authors note: My testing machine had an issue with activities, so I was unable to fully test activities: this section may have minor inaccuracies."
How much better off would KDE be if they just stopped foolishly hanging on to the idea of Activities? No one uses it. It's a solution in search of a problem.
Also, I told my non-techie brother that the three-line menu was called a "hamburger". He looked at me like I had a carrot growing out of my nose. Please someone come up with a better name for that thing.