been using xfce4 since it’s the default desktop environment for MX Linux and it’s really rock solid whilst treading the line between a full-on DE and a WM. To me it’s a lot more customizable than mate and has significantly more development behind it (can’t wait for 4.20!). With that being said i don’t necessarily have a problem with using mate and its app suite, the bottom being a taskbar instead of that just being part of the top bar is something i can get behind but you can achieve that with a panel profile on xfce just fine
It does have live versions for several DEs (gnome, kde, xfce, probably a couple others). If you have a bunch of spare usb sticks you could flash each of them into one and swap between them