I wouldn't say they "hate" it though. XFCE-components used to be common additions to really lightweight desktops (IDK if they still are, haven't looked into it in a while), because they can actually be used on their own (unlike most KDE stuff) while still being somewhat lightweight compared to Gnome stuff.
It doesn't have so many essential modern features, kde has hdr, proper fractional scaling, mixed refresh rate displays and is much more secure thanks to wayland, plus the performance hit is tiny these days.
Wait, you can spruce it up? I've been running it stock for a year now. The design grew on me because it was installed on all the old desktops in my highschool, and I've had it on my laptop ever since.