You'd be surprised. The color themes look super complicated, but writing the CSS for one of these desktops is like a weekend project (at the longest).
I was a ricer before in my heydays of Linux, but now, after 25 years, I just use whatever comes by default with Xubuntu (XFCE) and a Macbook
My NixOS config was a much larger investment - that took a few weeks to debug. But I've used it for more than 4 years now, and it's been more stable than any other OS I've used. If you're not building it for satisfaction or /r/unixporn then you can afford to accommodate your creature comforts.