I have been using twm for a short while long time ago, followed by rather happily using fvwm2 for many years, after which came gnome2, about which i had rather mixed feelings. After the demise of gnome2 I tried out mate, but somehow it felt like someone did
s/gnome/mate/g on the source code of gnome and changed the sticker on the box. It just didn't feel right. At least not at that time. Then my old desktop machine broke and had to be replaced. As the integrated HD graphics in my new machine wasn't supported at that time, my only 'desktop experience' for a while was FreeBSD /w text-console in dual-boot configuration with windows, until I added a supported nvidia graphics card, which finally brought new perspective to regaining a FreeBSD desktop. After throwing up over gnome3 and trying out a few other DEs, I finally landed with KDE5 plasma, which in a way just felt about right, so I made myself a new home and never looked back.
Not that I'm a typical desktop user, most of my desktop experience runs in one terminal emulator or the other. Otherwise I use a browser or two, an email program, a file manager and media player, but that's about it. For me it's the little things that decide whether my desktop experience is a pain or a pleasure. Like making effective use of virtual desktops, and by that I mean being able to switch those using keyboard shortcuts, or having a desktop that actually does work with focus-follows-mouse setting (one thing that Microsoft never really got to work, even in Windows 10, or maybe they are just ignorant of people who don't feel comfortable with their click-to-focus policy). If you want to experience true pain, try navigating the Steam UI on windows with your mouse set up for focus-follows-mouse.
Also it is 2020 not 1995, so when I think of desktop I most certainly do not think of things like editing my
.fvwm2rc in a text editor. Been there, done that, thanks, no more please. This is where KDE5 really pleases me. It is highly configurable and extensible without ever needing to touch a single text configuration file (unlike gnome3 where even some of the most basic configuration settings are considered 'tweaks' and you need additional software to 'tweak' your settings). KDE5 also seems to support my bad habit of adopting my Windows 10 desktop to my FreeBSD desktop and vice-versa rather well, and I can't say that it eats my RAM either. In fact just couple months ago I wiped Windows 10 off my old Notebook (core2 duo, 4GB RAM) after I finally had it, and replaced it with FreeBSD 12.1 /w KDE5 plasma and ZFS on root and it runs perfectly fine for the things I need it for.