I've been using xfce for about 10 years, and recently I've stopped customising it. I don't care about the theme, backgrounds etc. All I do is configured a single panel on the top of the screen and install plank. I have a few keyboard shortcuts for window tiling, and that's it. I haven't used Windows in a long time, so I'll be honest and say "I don't know what I'm missing", but I'm willing to bet that it ain't much, especially in return for what I get out of Linux. Maybe I should give it a go?