Now having GNOME with its Javascript based shell and extensions, making every click take a couple of seconds longer and me wondering what it is doing, no thanks.
I don't understand why you have to wonder what it's doing, the javascript is all self-contained and hosted locally. It's not using npm or anything like that. And the extensions are pretty much the same as any other app you use that supports plugins.
https://access.redhat.com/solutions/3410651
"GNOME Shell Performance Improvements in Ubuntu 20.04"
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/gnome-shell-performance-impro...
"Boosting the Real Time Performance of Gnome Shell 3.34 in Ubuntu 19.10"
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/boosting-the-real-time-perfor...
When I complain about GNOME performance, I am not making it up, learn that and bye.
Thing is, not everyone is a die hard fan. Developers on Gnome, by definition, are, but outside of that, customers are going to go with what works. And that's not Gnome. Customer's don't care that the UI slowness in version 1 was caused by X, and UI slowness in version 2 was caused by Y. There was UI slowness, which made it unusable, and, well, now they're using XFCE or OS X or Windows. It doesn't matter that there was a bug and it was fixed a year ago. The problem is that there was a bug a year ago, and that particular customer is gone and can't be recaptured - they've got a solution that works and they're not looking to switch to a different one. Especially one that has a history of problems.
That's not to say GNOME _isn't_ resource intensive -- it is, especially when compared to desktop environments that were either written to be lightweight or written 30 years ago -- that just isn't the best way to measure it.
That's why I said apples to oranges initially, but you're right, I could have clarified that part.