I can live in GNOME and only use the defaults. It just takes time to adjust my workflow. What helps me with whatever I’m using or whatever I’m doing (in life), is to not focus on the things “missing” and just make the best of what I have (to work with).
Since two years I’m on KDE but not because I was fed up with GNOME. I just wanted to try something else. Pretty much using stock KDE only that I moved the taskbar to the top of the monitor.