It's the least configurable piece of software in the world, and it has the absolute worst defaults imaginable. It's like they took all the worst parts of OSX, removed the little amount of configuration it had, and chose the ugliest possible colors.

To get a normal task bar, one where you get 1 section per window, not groupped by app, you need a separate plugin https://github.com/home-sweet-gnome/dash-to-panel . And it's not possible to only show the windows that are on the same monitor as the panel. And the "system tray" is so incredibly not configurable. For example, you need a separate "tweaks" package to get access to other basic functionality, but even that isn't enough. There doesn't seem to be any way of including the "year" in the clock on the system tray. In KDE I can configure it literally any way I want, or use one of the several included alternative widgets.

Take the bluetooth system tray as well. It takes 4 clicks to get to a section where I can connect a device (a device it already knows about, not a new one). KDE you open the bluetooth tray and click "connect" on whichever one you want, easy. Gnome I have to open the system tray itself (since icons aren't individually clickable), then click the "bluetooth" section, then "bluetooth settings", which opens a full modal dialog, THEN click the device I want to connect (which opens another modal), then click "connect". Absolutely absurd.

That's just some examples, but compared to KDE, which has every possible option you could ever even imagine, it's just extremely frustrating.

It's also just ugly.