In my experience it was KDE 3 that was praised, while 4 was shunned for being too bloated, and trying to be too much like Windows Aero

You can, but for me there’s just too much to fiddle, and I can’t help tinkering with stuff.

Eh, Gnome is fine. I like KDE, but I’d rather use my PC for the stuff I want to use it for rather than obsessively change some stuff so it looks better only to change it the next time I boot it again.