But the problems started with gnome 3. I had never put much effort into customizing my desktop but I just didn't like the defaults for gnome 3. Even worse some things I didn't like were hard to change, some required plug-ins (that sometimes broke) and some just couldn't be fixed at all.

I could use my system but it always felt a bit like I did so begrudgingly. That was when I wasn't using Linux full time. When I finally wanted to ditch windows completely I tried a lot. Different DEs, different distros and so on and I noticed that KDE felt good. I was skeptical but I gave it a real chance and I stayed. It feels good. It's not perfect but I really like it. It is customizable enough but has sensible defaults. It doesn't get in my way and I don't use it begrudgingly.