Yet so many distros choose it as the default. I feel like I am being gaslit by the entire linux community, am I crazy for not liking it? Unless you live in a browser and only a browser, KDE makes so much more sense.
I consider myself a "power user." I know what the computer can do, I know what works for me, and I want software that can be bent to my will, especially if I will be spending the majority of my day working with it. I tried to like GNOME for a long time, but KDE with all of its functionality and flexibility fits me a whole lot better.
I, as a technically inclined person who has many people in their life who are not, love GNOME as an opinionated desktop that works reasonably well for average users with no tweaking. I can install it, explain how the windows key works and then walk away from the computer for a decent amount of time.
Is it my daily driver? No. But I'm not going to inflict i3 on my loved ones. There's nothing gaslighting about not being the target demographic for something. Unlike macOS or Windows, if you don't like Gnome, use something else. Damn I'm getting tired of people acting like whatever Fedora or Ubuntu choose as the default is them trying to poison the FOSS well. They just need something that works by default and isn't a Windows clone (cough, KDE, cough). That's largely GNOME in 2023.
BUT, there are plenty of distros that do not use GNOME by default and there's always a way to remove it or install something else, because this is linux, after all. I wish we could objectively argue about desktop environments, but I think it may be like objectively discussing our favorite brand of underwear.
Why would your ideal config look anything like the next person's? Everybody has different needs, and everybody has different taste, different hardware, different workflows. What I'd recommend to one person isn't what I'd recommend to the next. I wouldn't even necessarily use the same DE between a laptop and desktop.
I see the value in both GNOME and KDE. I use KDE, but I miss certain things from GNOME like GNOME Sushi, which gives you a preview of a file with the spacebar similar to macOS' Finder's Quick Look. If you're a Mac user, GNOME will seem relatively familiar in the default OOBE.
You know how you hear a lot of very positive Mac users but very few people ever really talk about Windows machines in a positive light? Macs attract a certain user with a certain mindset, and GNOME is just like that too. You hear about their enjoyment of it. KDE users tend to be a bit more utilitarian in my experiences and just pick the thing that works and gets the task done, seldom ever discussing it, because it's just a DE.
That doesn't mean that either GNOME or KDE are the best or only way to do things though.
In terms of gaslighting, you're probably just chasing your tail. You want to understand what others see in it, that's cool of you, but maybe it just makes more sense to enjoy KDE, which it sounds like you already are. You can observe a similar thing in choice of DAW for audio, some people prefer x, others prefers y, z users are very vocal about enjoying their DAW (hello Reaper fanboys), but what ultimately counts is your ability to do the things you want to do with the tool at hand.
I am glad GNOME exists but its a DE I try to avoid.
You aren't alone.