Well, it depends which car you drive. If we compare software with cars you see similar things.
In the 60s cars were simple. Drove you from A to B and there were few models to choose from. You had the gasoline and Diesel engine. Both invented in Germany. In the 80s the tuner scene was born so people pimp up their vehicles. Later on new engines like electric and hydrogen was born. All those are more driven automatic, which is also a huge factor in the states. Only geeks drive with gears these days.
From the technical point of view, the old engines were more complex but also easier to repair. The new stuff is more combined with electronic and computers. All due to innovation and having new features.
If we put that now to Software and especially to KDE we saw many iterations of itself and how it envolved. The Kool Desktop from Germany made it mainstream. And with other desktop environments out there having a standard is more complex as youโre not alone to drive it forward. Also a lot of influence is happening from outside - community and other projects. So KDE wants still to be Kool. However they changed their slogan to โSimple by default, powerful when neededโ overtime.
KDE with its approach in Frameworks, Plasma and Apps (Gear) is a nice construct. Especially Frameworks is used in other projects like LxQt and JingOS. The Apps you find also in Microsoft Store and other platforms. Plasma is great to use. Also lately Companies using KDE software more often. Partly also cos Qt is some sort of industry standard and backed by a company. So if it is user and community driven you expect more features out of it. Corporate driven it will be more focused on the needs of a company and stability. Plasma LTS finds a great middle way for that. Kubuntu and Suse Leap a great examples of solid distros using LTS branches.
Lately it is not all rosy. Also Gnome has its ups and downs. As soon as you add extensions the shell might break if 3rd party developers donโt catch up with changes made by the upstream project. You also see those split-off projects like Mate, Cinnamon, Budgie and many more. FOSS is great, as if you donโt agree you fork or create some new.
Maui-Shell is using KDE Frameworks but add some own UI for the Nitrux Distribution. Plasma Mobile brings Plasma on Phone and Tablets and Plasma Bigscreen to the TV. However new ways may need new designs which creates also fragmentation within the project. So the current focus is still more on desktop side but also on mobile due to the SteamDeck. Maui-Shell tries to be a glue and adaptive to be used on Mobile and on Desktop with the same UI design. Phosh and Gnome on Mobile try to achieve the same with libhandy and libadwaita. With each new tech new ways of how you use your PC will happen. You either participate with those changes and report issues early or accept that changes might take more time to establish the used stability it once has when the focus was only on one thing - the desktop.
XFCE is not fancy, doesnโt has many features but it is stable and simple as its community and developers only focus on minimal improvements and changes to keep it solid.
So ya - software can always be fun to use. If you keep it close to the design of its developers and use similar hardware as they do youโre fine. If you more into adventures you have to step up and give back - at least with documentation of the issues you may have.
Also there is the tend to talk more about what is not working or got broken rather what got improved or new invented. Humans simply have a small problem to adjust to changes. We like all our established habits โฆ