I really hope that’s not the case. GTK4 is highly polished and getting better.
Even if for the sake of argument we accept that Gnome/GTK’s UI choices are poor, the consistency across applications elevates the overall experience.
If, for example, you disagree with the placement of buttons, you know that all the GTK buttons will have the button in the same place which greatly reduces cognitive load.
The same is, unfortunately, not true of other Linux UI kits.
> you know that all the GTK buttons will have the button in the same place
This is vehemently untrue. You know that all GNOME applications will have the buttons in the same place (GNOME writes their own HID) but GTK doesn't have an HID. GTK is simply a GUI toolkit, I can put my topbar at the bottom of my window if I want. It's not 'correct' but I can still do it and ship my application.
Even if for the sake of argument we accept that Gnome/GTK’s UI choices are poor, the consistency across applications elevates the overall experience.
If, for example, you disagree with the placement of buttons, you know that all the GTK buttons will have the button in the same place which greatly reduces cognitive load.
The same is, unfortunately, not true of other Linux UI kits.