I think Gnome removing options was more about having a smaller and more manageable set of features that need to be QA tested. I'd much rather have well-designed and well-supported defaults than 500 buggy customizable components that don't work well together.

https://ometer.com/preferences.html

I'm not sure about you, but I find Gnome very easy to use, although I miss some features. Those features can be added with Gnome extensions that are maintained by third-parties. Meanwhile I find GIMP extremely hard to use, as it packs in too many features to allow their designers to figure out a good UX which doesn't break some component.