

The issue is that it was the DE originally, some people (myself included) just didn’t fully get the memo when it changed like 15 or so years ago. I haven’t used the KDE DE since before that change, so I get how it could be missed. Rebranding is hard, even years later. I am sure many people think KFC still stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken too.
I used Openbox directly without a DE for a number of years on my netbook. It was perfectly serviceable for that use case, but I don’t think I’d have been as happy with it for my main workstation or personal desktop.