Digested HN comments:

I really do feel like XFCE on x11 is the logical choice, it "just works" and every app runs well

Also try LXDE and LXQT if you would like a 'lighter KDE' vibe instead of the 'lighter gnome 2' vibe of XFCE.

I'm a longtime fan of XFCE. I try all sorts of DEs from time to time on spare computers, but I reliably come back to XFCE, which is really just a fairly low-resource, stable embodiment of the classic GNOME feel.

I'm genuinely wondering why everybody hates modern GNOME.

Wayland just seems really unstable to me

Xfce is the definition of comfy computing.