I mean when Plasma came around it was so full of bugs, the useless activity thing, etc, and bug repors were just ignored (or all the response was get HEAD and reproduce on it otherwise no one cares.)
It was a combination of the massive, massive hype train that was generated by KDE + distro's not listening to KDE's ask for 4.0 and earlier versions not being shipped that caused a massive backlash. KDE learned from the mistakes and the 4 to 5 transition and 5 to 6 transition which is in the works now are both avoiding those mistakes. But KDE did fix those bugs. Within a few releases, KDE 4 was quite usable and stable, but the damage was done.
In my opinion KDE hasn't really recovered the bad image caused by that despite the fact that its in a much better position now.
Making incompatible changes between releases (3 to 4, 4 to 5 ) certainly didn't help. Who in his right mind would want to rewrite his program every time the main library changes ?
I uh, can't say 'polish' is a world I ever associated with the likes of Dolphin and co., or any of the alternatives if I'm being honest. I suppose there's a bit of a decent veneer there if you only judge them by screenshots and aren't terribly critical of the standard 'modern' sort of design in general.
But that falls apart real quick if you dare to think taboo words like 'configuration' or 'option.' Though I suppose at least on linux you're just in for pain as you try to figure out what to configure, and how, and disappointment when you accept that you can't actually get everything the way you want, and that whatever subset of features you want isn't actually available together. But you can make choices. You won't be that happy with it, but, at least you aren't stuck with the worst option.
To be fair, I couldn't even tell you if I ever used KDE 4 or not. So, I'm utterly useless as a point of reference. I'm just still bitter.
would make a perfect kde teeshirt