Same disease that plagues GNOME, change shit for sake of changing shit, fuck users that got used to the old way, they don't matter, is new way faster ? Who knows, we don't.
Your initial design might land somewhere very wrong, but starting to ask for feedback from that point on will lead you better since it's wrong for everyone, no?
It's the same problem with all excessively friendly interfaces, great if you are a day one user (pretty rare on Linux), obstructive and shitty if you know what you're doing.
Unfortunately I'm too lazy to switch to KDE (way too much stuff is broken if you install it not from the start and I don't want to reinstall), so I stick to gnome on my work computer.
I really, really appreciated KDE customization and power user options (hidden but there). It is messy and the UI is worse at times, but it's way ahead.
If we continue to cater to only technically inclined people, we have no right to criticize Linux for being for the knowledgeable people only. If we want to attract more users from a more diverse community, we need to make some changes to user experience.
There is no buts or ifs. There are plenty of desktop environments. Technically inclined people can tinker with gconf, or install something different (KDE, E17, or any of the TWMs).
Valve built the Steam Deck knowing very well that their core users will be PC gamers and not console gamers. The steam deck is made as open as a pc, with functionality to jump back-and-forth between that and a pc (dynamic cloud sync).
Console gamers will come, but you don't ignore the people that are at the core of your business.
I use GNOME, it's not great, but some people really hate it, go out of their way to tell everybody how pissed they are at it and that GNOME is the worst thing to have ever happened to the Linux world. I guess complaining about GNOME has become part of their identity, a trait shared by the vocal systemd haters that just won't shut up about it.
Many Linux users haven't gone past the "it's cool to hate" teenage phase. Goes hand in hand with the obnoxious elitism and anime avatars.
I just don't use it.
About as desktoppy as I'll get is XFCE. I gave my girlfriend (now wife) a Kubuntu-based laptop once to hold her over until I bought her a MacBook Air.
Systemd is another matter because Lennart doesn't seem to want me to have the "I just don't use it" option without stuff breaking. But Void seems to truck along quite nicely with runit so I'm content with that.
While I'm a die-hard KDE user, I like how GNOME experiments with new ways of evolving the desktop paradigm and workflow attached to that.
Yes, they remove a lot of settings, and have a binary format for storing settings (and I don't like these design decisions), but it looks that they're becoming a very good DE for non-technical Linux user.
If any Linux desktop environment had 5% of this inconsistency, they would be battered to hell and back. Today, thanks to efforts of KDE and GNOME, even Qt and GTK apps can be rendered almost identically.
One might not like the direction of a particular DE, but I think we can agree that they're putting a lot of work towards a better, more usable desktop experience (and, I had my fair share of 3rd degree burns during GNOME3's teething as a developer).
AFAIK, GNOME 2.0 and KDE 3.5.x is still maintained as independent, different projects now, too.
Imagine if the next version of MacOS had square icons for close/minimise/maximise and to update your app to use that new style, you had to switch UI frameworks. Then you'd end up with 2 different styles of apps on your system because not every app out there made the switch, and one would now look very out of place. That's the sort of thing Windows seems to do every major release.
The difference between GNOME and KDE's major overhauls is that KDE didn't get rid of all of their customization options in theirs.