Some people go as far as to say that Gnome looks like a cross between Windows 95 and Mac OS. 
Not really true now, at least not in Gnome running on openSUSE 11.2 or Linux Mint, or any other distro that makes some customization to the DE.
And yes, KDE running on a distro like openSUSE is hardly comparable with a Windows 7 desktop; Win7 would lose by a few thousand points I suppose, it’s GUI and functions are so lacking in features. Sometimes I wonder how the KDE and Suse developers (and the devs of other distros and DEs) can even bear to give away their wonderful creations all for free.
Then again, I suppose they make money by selling support and things like that, like Canonical does.