I always wanted to use KDE but found a dependency hell kind of situation. I am a bit compulsive with keeping a tidy system, and with KDE there's so much that if uninstalled, drags the whole of KDE with it.

Every time I give it another chance, usually on a new install, I find the same, that a bunch of applications, sometimes conflicting, cannot be removed.

Mate was my favorite for many years, but it seems neglected now. Therefore I stick with xfce, which my primary complaint for is having an arbitrary, unmodifiable grid arrangement for desktop icons, which I find very irritating.

I think, but can't recall with certainty, network-manager (or network-dictator) is one example of an application that can't be uninstalled without taking the whole KDE with it.

Edit: at the predictable risk of being silently stoned to death as happens every time I criticize Network-Manager, which I will always despise from here to Elysium, I love wicd. Please bring it back.

Author here: I didn't tested but it seems in NixOS you can exclude any of the included applications using the `environment.plasma6.excludePackages` option. I am not sure if this breaks anything though, and of course, this doesn't help if you don't already use NixOS.