It's the fullscreen app launcher that I'm trying to use, that needs this bizarre solution.
And also, asking people to completely swap out their OS or window manager just to solve an activity menu bug is kind of unhinged. I have already done so much work to get this machine working to this state. I rely on it. Starting from scratch is incredibly discouraging, so I put up with all sorts of friction, hate the experience, and go back to Windows on my main machine.
Plus, what if I switch to KDE, do all that work, and discover another painful, endemic bug? "Just switch distros" is the "just break up" of linux advice. It's easy, lazy, accomplishes nothing, and most people won't do it.