GNOME is still in their KDE 4.x days where it needs time to mature.
KDE 3 was loved, KDE 4 made a ton of breaking changes, and was reviled. KDE 5/6 are now butter smooth and fixed all the issues from the 3 -> 4 transition
GNOME 4/5 will probably come back into the loved category if they start stabilizing the extension system some more
GNOME 2 was different and easy to customize
GNOME is still in their KDE 4.x days where it needs time to mature.
KDE 3 was loved, KDE 4 made a ton of breaking changes, and was reviled. KDE 5/6 are now butter smooth and fixed all the issues from the 3 -> 4 transition
GNOME 4/5 will probably come back into the loved category if they start stabilizing the extension system some more