Supposedly, yes. In reality, I don't think that's so true (that they're build for regular users). GNOME and KDE are also very amenable to the needs of hackers.

Supposedly, yes. In reality, I don't think that's so true (that they're build for regular users). GNOME and KDE are also very amenable to the needs of hackers. I'd say they're designed as much for power users as regular people. With GNOME, lots of lip service is paid to making a DE for "regular people." But who /actually/ uses GNOME? Linux users. Linux users are almost overwhelmingly not "regular people," but power users. GNOME is very amenable to the minimalistic style of many hackers. And KDE is amenable to the "let's do some awesome shit" style of many hackers. It's on the cutting edge. It's not used by regular people and I don't think its development is driven by their supposed needs. Personally, I use Openbox and the command line. These are the best "desktop environment" tools I've found yet, by far. But they're not for everybody. They're for power users. And here's my point: they are the way they are by design, not by "suck."