GNOME is a memory hog and uses almost twice as much as KDE
It is unfortunate that every GNOME critic lives in 2015, and stick to those unhinged biases.
Steam Deck’s decision to use KDE has nothing to do with performance, but with customisation of UI, which is also why they use custom compiled Arch to modify every nook and corner of what Deck runs.
KDE is a much more polished experience for people who actually use computers, but gnome is okay if you’re just looking for something simple that looks smooth.
Its cool and hipster to be delusional, but when things get professional and you want stability and performance, GNOME is unbeatable. Nobody in the real world cares about the fancy one zillion features of KDE outside hipster hobbyists.