To be fair, I only use it on servers; I could imagine having to compile Gnome or KDE is a little more bothersome.
I feel the same about Gentoo, but my approach to desktops and servers is the opposite. If my laptop or desktop breaks during a Gentoo upgrade, it's an interesting learning experience (after much gnashing of teeth and shaking of fist). If a server breaks during an upgrade that's a business impacting outage. So I prefer to run Red Hat or CentOS on servers despite distinct lack of awesome latest packages.
I never bothered with a Gnome or KDE desktop. Compiling XFCE, Firefox and Chromium takes long enough.