Gnome is configurable, but in a way that isn't really well integrated. It seems buggy to me, but I think it's because my preferences aren't standard.
For instance, I like having my dock on the left, and I like top bar stuff to be in the dock, so the dock is the only thing that can take up screen space, and I like the dock to disappear when I'm not using it.
Simple, right? Can't do it in the regular configuration. Can do part of it in tweaks, which is a separate configuration app, but then some of it requires extensions. So, that's 3 places to go to
What's it called when hiding complexity makes it more complex?
So, that gets me there, but then the dock fails to hide half the time on zoom calls. And when I unlock the screen, I can see the empty space where the top bar used to be for a quick flash before the full sized app window goes back to where I left it.
So far, I don't have those issues with KDE. I don't like the annoying and krappy branding with the launcher icon and more than half the apps having a K in the name, but you can change the launcher icon and use whatever apps you want.