if i want to test a desktop out, it would be TheShell from aur, is kinda kwin based Desktop… i compiled one time but didnt work somehow but i will try that next time 
No Desktop here, no movable windows, no icons, only tabs and terminals 
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Um… pretty much. LOL.
Oh you were born in the dark… molded by it…
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Ive always liked Cinnamon and really have not had any issues with it. I’m not sure what you mean that it is basically behaving like a more modern version of Xfce? I’ve not used Xfce that much or any other desktop for that matter. I have tried them but i always go back to Cinnamon. Gnome could be snappier but i guess it depends on what hardware you are running them on. I just installed Arch Cinnamon the hard way again. 
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I heard it increases productivity with 902.223%.
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I ran them parallell for a while (Xfce and Cinnamon, I am an Xfce guy, mainly).
The look is fairly similar, the layout is almost identical. Everything you can do in Cinnamon you can do in Xfce (except online accounts, Xfce does not support it), but it is slightly easier in Cinnamon.
Easy small example: In both you can just add items to the panel. But in Cinnamon you can drag and drop into the panel, in Xfce you don’t, the launchers always start by the clock and you have to go into panel settings and place them (no drag and drop). The end result is the same, but it is a little easier in Cinnamon.
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Since KDE Plasma a very happy KDE user
KDE is my favorite. Very customizable, beautiful and fast.
I have used Cinnamon, Mate, Unity, XFCE, Budgie and Gnome, but at the end KDE was the one I settled with.
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I have tried, somewhat extensively, Gnome 2 (and the versions after), KDE, Cinnamon, MATE, LXDE, LXQt, and also Fluxbox, IceWM, and JWM.
Of those listed above, I liked Gnome 2 the best.
In MY opinion, Xfce is the nearest in functionality to Gnome 2 and, again in MY opinion, the Thunar file manager is superior to Dolphin, PCManFM, and Nautilus and the several others I have tried. (My wife agrees with me - and hers is an independent opinion.)
Therefore, regardless of the distro I am using (with one exception: SparkyLinux which uses LXQt by default), I try always to use the Xfce Desktop Environment. It allows me to use my computer without having to “think” about what the DE will allow or won’t allow.
It also allows whatever OS I am using to look the same as all the others (again, so I don’t have to “think”).
But that’s why they make chocolate and vanilla (and strawberry and peach and coffee and mint chocolate chip) ice cream!
Personally what a good desktop/wm defines the power to change. with Mate/kde/lxqt/xfce also cinnamon etcetra/wm’s you have the power to do something but gnome based desktops is less power to change things i dont like it personal… pcmanfm-qt for me is complete and simple =)
i agree, everytime i try a new OS i usually tend to use xfce4 for the same reason you said.
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Truth is, DEs have matured so much these days, that it’s hard to choose. It’s rare that you can say: I absolutely hate that other DE. I’m leaving the ones using tiling WMs out and talking mainly about KDE, Gnome (and derivatives like Cinnamon and Mate), XFCE, LXDE with their default WMs here.
I started with Gnome, then went with KDE, Budgie, Mate, Cinnamon then finally XFCE. Each and every time I said “This is it. I love this DE, I’ll make it mine.” But then over time some small annoyance or bug made me switch. I settled for XFCE finally. But I can see myself doing my job happily with any of the aforementioned. In my opinion the wars can end now. The current days’ DEs are pretty similar and can for the most part be made to look pretty much the same.
I like Thunar too myself. I liked Nemo, but then they went on and dumbed it down. I can’t understand this. They simply removed functions and made it less useful than it was.
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Mate is much closer to Gnome2 than xfce. Actually Mate is the continuation of Gnome2 under a new name.
J
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I tried MATE quite extensively on one of my computers (over a year) and there were some things I needed/wanted to do but couldn’t. Just at the moment I cannot remember what they were (it’s been several months since I finally “gave up” on MATE) but the changes/configurations I desired were (are) easy in Xfce.
But, as I said about ice cream flavors …
Desktops are pretty subjective as a full de xfce is good kde also very configurable what ou like fully armed or minimal possible… personal i like lxqt standard because like , i can switch to my running programs in a key bind without altab in lxqt manage the groups setting further as wm for lxqt is pretty open to have xfwm4 is basicly fine, openbox has not that level of xfce but have somewhere build in but does not work properly with the global key setting of lxqt. i wanted my self more qt5 so i choosed that. pcmanfm-qt5 is nice not to much also have a sftp function in it where thunar need gigolo frontend for it. where kde to much for is for me lxqt or xfce fine, but i mlust say endeavouros menu is nice configuret standard
My understanding is that development of Mate has stagnated, much the way Openbox is considered a “mature project” and only sees maintenance updates. XFCE, while development is slow, is seeing a major update this year and is much improved over XFCE of 5 years ago.
Mate has had the releases of the versions 1.16, 1.18, 1.20 and 1.22 in the last 3 years, while xfce has released, uhm, nothing but a preview since 2015.
So much for “stagnated development”.
J.
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every desktop has its function, what if Xfce persue the functions KDE / Gnome whatever, i dont think a regular xfce user do like Xfce they will look of another one. does not mather how versioning going, as long the code is good and maintained. bit of pieces comes new stuf in but its no use with a rush… Like Xfce, lxqt do also introduce things slowely… even some packages already is there. but i dont hink its the issue because most of people want a usable and stable desktop with not to much thinger about configuration. Like gnome also kde , standard it is to much on, only on kde you can fine tune it but then you miss some other function. xfce meant to be rock solid
Then I was wrong 
but I haven’t looked at Mate since about 2013. I really do like that the xfce-wm is finally robust enough that I don’t have to replace it with Openbox or replace its compositor with Compton.