Thanks for the thoughtful response ☺️

So, tell me about your experience with Mate and why you love it? I'm a very mildly experienced Mint Cinnamon user. I'm considering a switch to LMDE just to get away from Ubuntu base. My machine is fairly beefy, and cinnamon runs like a swiss watch for me. With performance not being a concern, am I missing out on anything by passing on Mate?

Edit: oh shit, also, pretty rice, looks soothing.