I don't know where all of the love for KDE is coming from. It's got so many graphical and UI bugs even in comparison to XFCE that I can't use it as my daily driver.
I liked KDE but it was too complicated for my use case. In general I have found that the fewer features a desktop environment has the more I enjoy using it.
I’m surprised that the logical minded folk of HN aren’t more geared to minimalist environments like simple window managers. If you’re an engineer why do you need or want a fully fledged desktop environment? I stopped using KDE after I discovered all I needed was a window manager and application launcher.