I've used Linux for longer than KDE or GNOME have existed. But for as long as they have. KDE has been my home for the whole time, apart from the early plasma days. Apart from enlightenment, which you don't generally hear much about these days. Though it's still chugging along.

It's always been extra configurable. In the early days it was like a flashy open-source CDE. But it's just grown to continually have more capabilities and more polished. GNOME sort of did the opposite thing here. Which works for some people. Not myself, but some people. Designing the system to be used one way and one way only. So much so that even people like systems, 76, abandoned using them as a base. Designing their own desktop environment called Cosmic.

Also KDE has been improving its performance a lot!

KDE actually uses less RAM at idle than XFCE. It's been optimized like crazy.

Insane that the most feature-heavy DE in existence is also one of the lightest, most efficient major DEs in existence.