Even then all you need is arcmenu (customizable startmenu with many easy to use presets) and dash to panel/dock to get it looking nice, it's pretty usable by default if you don't like clutter. I love scrolling through the extension store and seeing what people made for their needs that might fit mine. I have dozens but I don't need them, it's all just a nice bonus. Mostly also use tophat to show resource usage, chronomix for a timer for work in the topbar, the one that adds the background app icons, and idr the customization ones to make the top bar be colorful and have seperated buttons instead of a bar.

All the gnome hate is why I used kde for months before giving gnome a proper look (initially tried it for 5 seconds and didn't even try to use extensions), I have not wanted to go back for the 6 months I've been using gnome.