It depends... I've found things I like and dislike with every DE I've ever touched... from early windows, to OS/2, Mac old and new, Amiga, BeOS, and even some bits from more modern Windows. On my personal desktop, I've been running Cosmic, as it's close to what I want. I had run Budgie desktop previously and had it tweaked very specific to my liking, but it was a hodge-podge and I just wanted an out of the box experience easier to deal with.
I think there is/was a lot to like with the Win9x interface that I feel advanced a lot through to Windows 7 even. I think the current taskbar in windows is relatively nice too, but the start menu itself has taken a few steps back. I'd like to see Cosmic get a bit closer to the taskbar, but keeping it's application menus and settings, which get better with each iteration imo. There's still something alien about the spacing on the dock's corners though.
Different people want different things because they use computers in different ways. That's ok.
I personally am very happy with my sway setup - it works fantastically for me but most people would honestly hate it. That's ifne - I wouldn't force anyone else to use it.
And yet for 99% of the cases we have a certain way we like them to be. And I'm in that 99%. And we know exactly what I'm talking about. So for all intents and purposes, fuck the edge cases. Let's focus on the archetype.
Not 100% sure what point you’re making. Mainstream desktop O/Ss strive to service this 99%, so you have an abundance of choice. Windows, MacOS, KDE, Ubuntu are all there to cater to you.
Be forced to use Gnome because some royal 'We' decided that's what a DM should be? No farking way. Force someone else to use KDE because I think Gnome is kinda awful? No. Give up on low-resource desktop environments because Gnome or what ever is The One True DE? Sorry...no.
I think there is/was a lot to like with the Win9x interface that I feel advanced a lot through to Windows 7 even. I think the current taskbar in windows is relatively nice too, but the start menu itself has taken a few steps back. I'd like to see Cosmic get a bit closer to the taskbar, but keeping it's application menus and settings, which get better with each iteration imo. There's still something alien about the spacing on the dock's corners though.