I’m not really sure when you last used Cosmic but it’s actually pretty good lately. And is also my preferred DE right now. It’s a much easier way to use tiling windows and everything works pretty well out of the box. Granted it’s not as customizable as some other DEs but it’s got everything that I’m looking for.
Which is really the way we should look at other people’s setups. I won’t tell anyone their setup is wrong unless it’s a security issue. We need to put the personal back in Personal Conputers.
I only started using Cosmic when Pop_OS! 24.04 came out so I never touched it before it was a stable release so I have no opinions before that. My initial impressions were that it was good enough to try as a daily driver because the things that were missing, like accessibility options, weren’t things I personally needed. Did it need work, yes. Is it a disaster of a DE, No.
When it comes to the AI issue, I’m a bit torn. I think AI can be a great tool for development. The problem is having the opportunity for some slop kiddies to constantly throw a program into chaos because they put Hermes into YOLO mode. A "No AI"policy is a way to prevent problems but I don’t think it’s necessarily a perfect one.