I think Linux users in particular don't mind investing in their DEs, but the investiment cost shouldn't be so high in the beginning as to scare off new users. DEs have to carefully balance a good initial configuration with the flexibility for long term usage.
A second issue with "investing in your DE" is that we tend to update computers and installations a lot these days. Any extra step required to configure your environment becomes tedious over time. I used to have a rich dotfiles folder, but the pain of maintaining it became so high that I slimmed it down to the absolute minimum. I even forced myself to conform to some programs' defaults. The less time I spend hunting for this kind of highly specific documentation, the better.
It's just that it saddens me that the KDE people don't seem to understand
that first impressions are a big thing. I really believe that in terms of
engineering KDE has no competitor... on any platform or OS. But as history has
shown us, this is not enough. When an avid KDE user like me can't stand
the defaults and spends 1-2 hours on every new installation to make it
usable, something is not right.
Also add to the fact that at some point I need to get some work done and
not mess with DE config options... sigh.
A second issue with "investing in your DE" is that we tend to update computers and installations a lot these days. Any extra step required to configure your environment becomes tedious over time. I used to have a rich dotfiles folder, but the pain of maintaining it became so high that I slimmed it down to the absolute minimum. I even forced myself to conform to some programs' defaults. The less time I spend hunting for this kind of highly specific documentation, the better.