[throwaway89988]

Another vote for KDE3 as the best Linux desktop environment.

I forgot how it was called, but one could easily automate the whole desktop back then via scripts and an interface to the KDE3 programs.

KDE IMHO never returned to that level of polish and quality (yes, I tried 6).

Today I am a GNOME user and its killer feature for me is provisioning via dconf and Evolution is my favorite email client on any platform.

[kombine]

I only started using KDE 4, then quit and came back for KDE 5. Now I'm running KDE 6 on Wayland and it the most stable it ever has been. There is a significant push for bug fixing and polish. Port to Qt 6 started a major release cycle and I expect it to mature a lot in the next few releases.