If it helps, I've been using XFCE since 2007 and it's remained functionally identical for all of those almost 20 years. It just works, it improves a tiny bit with each major upgrade, and they don't rearrange everything every couple years for the sake of justifying a salary.

Maybe it's a good opportunity to consider whether you actually have to keep running on Apple's treadmill.

> dumped a glass of water all over my MBP

I believe that's how the designers at Apple came up with Liquid Glass

Liquid Glass is not that bad lol.