I've found nowadays I want a desktop that stays out of my way as much as possible. Preferably it should be lightweight and responsive. I can still remember whe

I've found nowadays I want a desktop that stays out of my way as much as possible. Preferably it should be lightweight and responsive. I can still remember when I first started using Linux how excited I was that you could customize everything. I spent hours tweaking KDE to look just how I wanted it. Right down to the appearance of the clock on the system tray. Then AIGLX came out - I spent even more time compiling kernel modules running custom compositors etc so I could have wobbly windows and a spinning cube to switch virtual desktops. You know what for all the time it took me to get everything working it solved precisely none of the issues I had. Nowadays (10+ years later has it really been that long) I don't care about any of that I've come to the realization the desktop just doesn't matter it's the applications. I use the computer to run applications (be it firefox, emacs, terminal emulator, whatever else I need to get work done) make it easy for me to launch applications and make it easy for me to toggle between applications. Other than that stay out of my way. I think a lot of long time users end up feeling the same way which leads to conclusion a lot of techies don't care about the desktop. Which I think is true but not for the reason you think.