[rainbow29822]

>But you can't choose your window decorations, themes, desktop panels independently anymore and get a somewhat matching look and feel. It's only Gnome island, KDE/Plasma island, and hacker-minimalist island.

Maybe take that as an indication those "spirits" are at odds and can't be reconciled? You can't have a system that's fully stable and predictable but also lets you swap out any component at a moment's notice to some unsupported third party thing. You either pick one or the other. In my opinion Linux has only ever been really worth it for companies willing to employ developers to work on it; you don't get any of that customization for free. At one point Linux companies were experimenting with things like desktop panels but then the market changed, they stopped and the money dried up. That's what happens.