KDE 3.5 RC 1 Released
HatofPig writes "The KDE Project has released the first release candidate for KDE 3.5, the last of the 3.x versions. There are many added features and bugfixes such as easier Kicker configuration and many UI tweaks. Get the source, Suse packages, or packages for Kubuntu and start filing bug reports today!"
Why don't you read about the added features and bugfixes ? There is much more to KDE than just eye candy.
For me, it's very useful to read that client side IMAP filtering is at last beeing added (but still in progress, though), and thus I can use KMail and ditch Thunderbird. However, I've no need to see a screenshot of a dialog box for IMAP filtering rules.
Essentially, you compared your preferred way of organizing the desktop with his preferred way of organizing the desktop, and concluded that GNOME is better. Congrats.
You can pretty much configure anything in KDE. You can make it plain and simple (by default, it is pretty plain and simple) - you can even lock it down with kiosk and associated tools (read why the Dutch Record Shop Chain Migrated 1000 desktops to KDE to limit it's functionality to accessing one page on the internet and 4 apps if you wish to. And configuring it is rather easy via kcontrol. When I switched to linux 5 years ago, the first thing I really felt comfortable with was kcontrol. I knew that I can't screw up anything with a desktop config utility, and playing with it for a week or so got me accustomed to using it (of course I tried a few apps as well, but the inevitable "now what" question that comes up after installing a new and different operating system is best answered by providing harmless customization tools. At least, that's a good way for noobs to get confortable. Since than, I spend ~10-30 minutes (depending on the amount of new features) with configuration when a major release happens, and I am really glad that I can customize the hell out of it. I won't use something like parent's desktop, but I'm also glad for his ability to use KDE the way he wants without the need to edit obscure values in the registry or download 3rd party apps to do that more easily ;)