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Why would you test all Ubuntu desktop environments separate? Shouldn’t the hardware support be the same?

Shouldn’t the hardware support be the same in a given kernel version?

I've had instability issues with specific GNOME or KDE releases in combination with certain drivers (notably, you guessed it, written by NVIDIA) so at least Ubuntu vs Kubuntu matters. My laptop's touchpad only supports proper gestures with Wayland, which means disabling the NVIDIA drivers (or waiting for the next holy grail of GPU drivers, the current ones aren't the promised holy grail yet on laptops) is required for me to get the touchpad working. Because I value the ability to attach an external screen, I've instead switched back to X11, which means no gestures and therefore only partial touchpad functionality.

I don't know how much the other versions of Ubuntu differ, they all seem relatively minimal in comparison.

While kernel support is the first step, userland applications need to take advantage of the hardware for it to be useful.

e.g desktop envoronments need to care for how it interacts with touchpads, you want your wireless interface to actually be configurable. You want sane handling of which audio device is the default, and you'd want recognicable names to select them. The list goes on for another mile.

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