This is essentially my reason set. I run KDE + (whatever) whenever I am doing desktop linux. It works, out of the box, in a UI paradigm that I can use effectively (tip to designers: this is essentially windows 98 paradigm, with minor tweaks).

I don't want to fart with random scripts I have to cook up and futz with to get a working system.

The things I want to hack are the things that are coming out of my own work, not making someone else's work useable.