> but it's the best desktop linux experience

This is extremely subjective. I'm a full-time EXWM (Emacs as a window manager) on NixOS user and my environment is customized[1][2] to work the way I want it to.

Default desktops can work great for you if your mindset and workflow align with the designer(s) of the UI - but in my opinion it is much more valuable to be able to (note: not forced to) customize everything about your environment to slowly tailor it to your needs.

TL;DR - there's no single "best desktop experience".

[1]: https://github.com/tazjin/nixos-config [2]: https://github.com/tazjin/emacs.d