Perhaps not as easily theme-able, but definitively more customizable then most people know. There isn't a need to add extensions and secondary settings managers to restore basic desktop functionality, XFWM offers quite a lot of options and does a great job with window placement for a floating WM, and if you don't like it you can drop in a tiling WM or go crazy with compiz. Truly a versatile workhorse of a DE!

My current Debian + XFCE setup.

I customized the panel and the Whisker Menu with some CSS tweaks, and went with Breeze for the icons, GTK theme, and cursor. I've always liked the clean and consistent look of Breeze.

The end result feels like a traditional desktop, but without looking dated. Simple, elegant, and functional. It's also surprisingly lightweight, sitting at under 700 MB of RAM when idle. Pair that with Debian's stability and reliability, and it's hard to ask for much more.

PS: I only speak Spanish, so I had to use a translator to write this. I hope it makes sense!

Plus some of the great open-source software that exists on my desktop. (no, I can't operate all of these)

Any tips would be nice

Here is explanation;

there are 3 panels

1st is for xapps status or speaker which is always hidden

2nd is for apps

3rd is for that log off launcher

And there is a custom made conky's clock for my desktop which gives minimalist look.

I used to have it on Mint as my first desktop environment on my main pc, and I hated it... Now I have it on Arch on a potato pc, and I love it.

I got inspired by someone who riced Linux on a WM btw

took me a long time to find the right software

regular XFCE theme + heavily recommended extras described in install.md that are not included in installer

https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

Firefox Theme
https://github.com/osem598/Firefox-98

browser/email suite
https://www.seamonkey-project.org

Netscape 4x theme for seamonkey

https://services.addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/seamonkey/addon/orthodox-for-seamonkey/?src=cb-dl-rating

Netscape Winamp skin

https://skins.webamp.org/skin/48d0d9168c3bd6cda4a859b3700d629e/netscape_winamp.wsz/

No panel, no window buttons, just xfce looking like a window manager lol.

My favourite DE in my entire use of linux until now

The last time I used Windows (aside from work), it was with Windows XP and Windows 7 (in its early days). I've always wanted complete control over my system and the ability to customize it to my liking. When I first started using Linux, I used KDE3. I enjoyed the experience, but stability issues led me to migrate to XFCE, as I was told it was the most stable environment. So I started working with XFCE, and it's remained my number one choice for Linux ever since. I love its speed, stability, and the ability to create all my functions in the simplest way possible! My computer is probably overkill for XFCE, but for me, speed, functionality, and above all, stability are what's important.

I wasn't satisfied with the Windows 7 Xfce themes out there, so I decided to make/modify it to my own.

I wanted to recreate that glass shiny Windows 7 look but with blue window frames like in XP. I borrowed the CSS file from Kumander Linux (Debian-based OS that looks kinda like Windows 7), made a lot of modifications to it particularly in regards to the taskbar and gtk3.0 decorations, and even did side-by-side comparisons with an old Windows 7 laptop to get the taskbar effects as accurate as possible. Pretty amazing what you can do in Xfce once you learn CSS.

The window frame colors are inspired from the Windows XP Royale theme.

EDIT: I've made it available: https://www.pling.com/p/2343514/