True, they work regardless. DTP keeps a consistent look across my desktops, and I agree that having to install third party extensions is perhaps not ideal to reach that, but I was catering to a specific use case. I didn't mean to suggest that I dont find stock gnome to be a perfectly servicable DE.

In any case, the overview at login is still obstructive for my workflow, and I've resorted to disabling that with yet another extension.

I did try plasma 5.27 and 6 (fedora 40 rawhide) very recently. Can appreciate all the functionality it offers but maybe it goes a but too far. I found it sort of busy, the config menus were disorienting, and I found myself tweaking that ootb experience more than with gnome.