> Wasn't Enlightenment something that just looked good in screenshots
Yea, this was my memory of it, too. I remember installing it, and making a theme that looked all "elite" and cool. I added an anime character desktop background, as was required at the time. Took a few screenshots, basked in how cool I was, and then just switched back to whatever I was using before (I think Gnome).
> I added an anime character desktop background, as was required at the time
i always thought that "stone hand on desert island" was the #1 requirement for Linux desktop backgrounds of the time? ofc i can't find a pic of it now
edit: found it https://i.ibb.co/bgpRF6Y7/image.png
Lots of teenagers were using it back then judging by the old themes, 95% of which suck. As an adult I made a simple, attractive theme, enabled only the most basic and useful eye candy, and just use it. None of the other alternatives interest me, and I've tried them all.
It worked, at least 25+ years ago when I last used it; early versions weren't a model of stability, but that wasn't nearly as important as an X server or a Wayland compositor not crashing, since you can simply restart an X window manager when it crashes (from a terminal window, virtual terminal, automatically from a script, etc.).