Well you can also use any theme you want on GNOME apps, libadwaita didn't break that, or rather it's just as bad as it is with KDE themes. Some themes will work but other themes will break everything.
>It's not the uphill battle you're trying to project to make KDE apps work on non-KDE environment. Sure, some themes aren't built well but some are and all I have to do is install Kvantum+qt5ct to make the app look how I want it to.
I can't agree here, I have had qt5ct break really badly with some apps and themes. It just doesn't work if the app wasn't designed to use it. I don't even bother with KDE themes anymore and I just use Breeze, if you ask me third-party theming is a total waste of time on any platform. For me it's always broken things or caused very strange glitches.
>I meant to say that, unlike GNOME apps, they allow me to use my own themes and don't enforce their decisions and choices on me when I use their apps. This isn't possible with GNOME and elementary apps because they chose to become their own isolated silos.
Again I honestly have no idea what you're talking about here, GNOME and Elementary apps can still be themed through unofficial third party methods. Developers of apps for those platforms do tend to focus on supporting the official theme for those platforms but that's the same as KDE where developers focus on supporting Breeze.
>I'm not using Android or iOS so I don't expect to be treated like an idiot.
Funny you mention this because I used to have jailbroken Android and iOS phones that were hacked to install third-party themes. The themes were just as broken as with GNOME and KDE. They might work OK with some of the built-in apps but would break quite badly with any third-party apps or when an OS update happened. That was another reason I just stopped trying to use third-party themes altogether.
>Is it? The opinions on that article are almost always shared by all the core GNOME developers I've seen commenting on issue trackers. Even the stopthemingmyapp guys resonate those opinions.
I'm not sure what you mean by core GNOME developers. IIRC Stopthemingmy.app was signed by some independent developers that decided they don't want to support third party themes that break their apps. It's not even related to the shell or extensions. You're conflating several things here. That petition didn't change anything technically about themes, it was a public acknowledgement that themes can break apps badly and that they won't be supporting them, which they never did before anyway.
>Judging by the general disdain towards extensions by GNOME developers and many users, I doubt that's the case.
You may have a biased view, I've heard complaints but the reason they happen is because users really like extensions and want them to stay. I've also heard lots of good things from users and extension developers, it works well when extension developers can test and update their extensions in a timely manner. Besides you can already have that if you want; just don't install any extensions.