I agree on KDE being better but that's just because they consistently put in the effort and results piled up over time.
Sure, with a few setbacks (cue 4.0 nightmares) but overall their technological choices (Qt in primis), architecture and quality of contributors won the battle.
Gnome used to be way more polished at the Gnome 2 vs KDE 3 era but kind of lost its way over time.
It's definitely not about unchangeable defaults vs configuration (there's a market for both).
