I have only used XFCE since 4.6 so you could be right. XFCE 4.8 is still way less of a mess than GNOME and KDE 3. Configuring and using XFCE was very straightforward.
It gets a lot of hate right now, but its a really stress-free environment for me. Taking a look at the GNOME 3 cheat-sheet will fix most of the power-user complaints.
I think when GNOME 3 get more features and applications it will quickly regain user share because of its superior design philosophy. Like what happened to GNOME 2 - it got flamed hard in the reviews, Linus blasted it; but its developers kept making it better without changing their design decisions and it was adopted by major distributions and most users stuck with it.
