Have you tried truly commiting to the Gnome worflow? Like not using extensions, never minimising, and throwing everything in a new desktop unless you need to have two applications side by side? I did it once kind of to make fun of it and honestly... it's not too bad? It's not my thing but it works.
Gnome is alright. One thing I give them major props for is the ergonomy: how any action can be done eficiently either with only a keyboard or only a mouse. Xfce or LXQT are better for me but they can't do that.
Their desktop paradigm is a big shift and you need ro commit to it at first but honestly it's not as bad as people say.