KDE still seems pretty bloated
But what things in KDE do you consider 'bloat'?
To the exact contrary to what you assert, one of the prominent argument against Gnome that I've been seing times and times again in DE debates, is the "dogmatic" opposition to SSD from the Gnome project.
Doubling down on short judge-y stacatto contributes to an aggressive "I don't need to tell you" vibe that would be sassy and fun, maybe, if in person. In writing online comments, it just means we need to get a 3rd comment from you before we get to anything I'm interested in (I don't particularly care what your one word description is, I don't know you)