I've tried that and it's just lipstick on a pig. There's so much of Elementary that is more than just the DE itself, that makes it feel so complete and cohesive.

Can you expand on what some of those things are, or link to something that does? It sounds like a great lesson for other distros.

You can read a lot about it on their blog, specifically this post:

http://blog.elementary.io/post/153360513026/busting-major-my...