When was the last time you used KDE? Cause this time around that hasn't been my experience at all, it's gnome that's currently really disjointed with random hamburger menus and whitespace everywhere.
Current KDE feels like the most well put together DE I've ever used, and its really efficient once I get my custom keybinds in there.
And no, Gnome is not inconsistent. I just opened a bunch of applications, and they either have a hamburger menu on the top left or top right, mostly with the same options list and "About" at the bottom of the list. There is some slight visual difference between GTK4 applications and GTK3 applications that are yet to have a rewrite, but it is very consistent. Which does comes with the aforementioned problem of the Gnome devs being very "my way or the highway".
In a strange way KDE reminds me of Windows, where the application devs always seem to be using 3-4 different frameworks, 3-4 different installers, and none of them try to get more than broad consistency between eachother.
I did say in my experience, whereas you seem to be speaking in absolutes.
Either way I disagree with you. I think we have differing opinions of what good actually is, and gnome just isn't good anymore to me. Best of luck to you though.
Current KDE feels like the most well put together DE I've ever used, and its really efficient once I get my custom keybinds in there.