the latest version of xfce4 is what I would call a really clean, no bullshit modern desktop metaphor. I say that as a person who extensively used kde v1 and v2.x and migrated away from it when they started trying to clone windows vista.
In some ways xfce4 reminds me a lot of windows 2000.
Yeah, but unfortunately xfce4 just covers the desktop manager + some utility apps part.
Most of the apps would be an assortment of (non Xfce) Gnome-inspired GTK, Electron (e.g. Slack, VSCode), custom (Firefox, Chrome, Sublime Text), and/or KDE stuff, each with its own warts and "modern" approaches...
In some ways xfce4 reminds me a lot of windows 2000.