Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used KDE and absolutely loathed it. Admittedly this was fifteen years ago, but I was blown away by the developers’ inability to make any actual design decisions, instead punting literally everything to a mountain of configuration options. Case in point, the taskbar system clock. There were no fewer than six full tabs of options to customize its behavior, including the ability to use Swatch Internet Time. Everything…
Well, it's a matter of taste. But I find the latest version quite pleasant when using Krita's dark orange color scheme. I really, really, love how much I can customise though. I also try GNOME, Xfce, and Cinnamon every new relatively big release. And, as far as I'm concerned, really like all those projects. I must say though, I hate how GNOME locks you in to their apps. I understand their commitment, but for instance…
GNOME is just as configurable as KDE; the difference is KDE bothers to make any of these settings discoverable.