I meant just changing the icon pack and panel theme which is not that difficult and some people may be fine with the default. Not saying gnome or kde are worse, just that xfce is not as bad as you think it is :)

Xfce is highly customizable (definitely more than gnome) and can look modern with a little theming. Its also much easier to replace components of the de (like the xfce wm or app launcher for example)

Yeah that would be ideal. That way if one instance is temporarily down you could still use your account.

i think this is bring worked on, but in the meantime, you can still transfer subscribed communities with lemmy migrate