I have spend the last couple of months playing with 9.10 and the three environments. I wanted to share my experience to see if it matches the rest of you.
Gnome: Ubuntu is dragging a dead corpse. More and more Gnome looks and feels like a bunch of apps duck-taped together and hacked on top of each other. While compiz is cool, it is horribly slow, the media players do not integrate with the system, youtube and other flash apps randomly stop responding (they run, just cannot be clicked) and many other such issues. I know I can replace compiz with metacity, but then I might as well run XFCE (which has more features than metacity). I feel that the only reason that anything in Gnome works, is because of the enormous effort by the huge Ubuntu community (too much effort that can be more productive if spend somewhere else).
KDE4: The black sheep of the family. After the initial release of 4.0, KDE got very bad popularity, furthermore, since Ubuntu is Gnome-centric kubuntu has to deal with a lot of additional issues (such as getting all the apps to work with the different sound server). Kubuntu 9.04 had no sound on my desktop (even though the 8.10 with the beta version of KDE 4.2 had no trouble). 9.10 work well on the desktop, but would slow one of my laptops to a crawl and wouldn't even install on the other. The only way I found to make KDE work is by installing Ubuntu and then adding kubuntu-desktop. Once you get KDE working, however, you get huge boost of performance from the faster Kwin, you get more options, better integratino of the default apps and many other cool features. I would encourage people to give it a try, even the most hardcore Gnome fans; if nothing else, then you will at least get a better view of all the ares where Gnome is currently lacking.
XFCE: WoW it is fast, but how do you do xyz. Actually I found this one to be the most stable DE right now and I really like it. The problem with XFCE is that it just doesn't have all the features one might expect from a modern desktop. I don't really hold this against the DE, since XFCE does exactly what it is supposed to do: run as fast and as light as it can. I just don't see XFCE becoming the DE for the average user.
Hopeful for the future:
Gnome Shell: The first screenshots and from what I read about it, I have somewhat mixed feelings, however, I reserve any judgement for after I get a chance to try it. I just hope it fixes all problems that Gnome has right now.
Kubuntu 10.04: Right now KDE 4.3 (and soon KDE 4.4) is solid and has none of the problems of the infamous 4.0. My hope here is that the kubuntu project will catch up and in 10.04 we will see a stable KDE release that will wash away the bad fame.
XFCE: keep on doing the good job. A very light DE is necessary for many people and one thing that Linux is proud of is the large variety of choice for the different people with different needs.
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