GNOME

I'm really quite frustrated with most Linux desktop environments.  Nothing seems to really be able to top GNOME imho.  What is it exactly that makes this arena of environment so elegant?  It's simple, yet extensible.  It's not bloated, but does everything well.  It's quick, efficient, and has plenty of development so anything you want to do with it, you can most likely find a patch or package which will do it.  If someone uses Flubox or some other extremely minimalistic interface, let me know why you use it.  KDE users... best of luck.  I liked KDE 3.5... Once 4.0 hit, there was just not enough stability.  It seemed like stability came at the cost of speed.  If you're in KDE development, please enlighten us with why this is so.  KDE seems to be getting more and more bloated, with fewer and fewer features for the buck.

*****Edit*****
I have since tried KDE 4 for quite some time, and they've really made some improvements.  It's by far more stable and scalable than I remember.  Great job, guys.