I don't use KDE anymore (switched to XMonad a few years ago), but I still use Dolphin for its DAV/SMB capabilities, and occasionally gwenview. But why do you think KDE is "losing ground"?
And Konsole is pretty good, but doesn't handle resizing well in XMonad, so it's urxvt for me.
And Konsole is pretty good, but doesn't handle resizing well in XMonad, so it's urxvt for me.