I've been saying for a long time that one thing the free DEs have going for them is that they don't consist so much of separate parts, each of which needing to

I've been saying for a long time that one thing the free DEs have going for them is that they don't consist so much of separate parts, each of which needing to advertise for itself. No need for FooApp to look extra special, no need to shove the name into the user's face. Universal document readers with format plugins, such as Okular, are a nice example. Not great at most things not PDF but you can see the idea. A universal tagging and rating system kind of exists in KDE but somehow it hasn't turned out as useful as it promised initially (IMO). There is still a lot of unrealized potential in that area.