When I was first introduced to Solus, and learned of its available choices for desktop environments, I did some experimenting to find which one I preferred. On other distros, I've found Xfce to be excellent, and it's been my choice for years. Solus didn't offer it, though, and instead had its own DE called Budgie. I thought it might as well be called "Tweetie Bird," but I'm open-minded and wanted to give it a fair try.
I explore any new (to me) distribution by creating a VM and using it for a while. I dislike Gnome, so I didn't consider that, but I created a Budgie VM and an otherwise identical (all same settings) Mate VM, and ran them side-by-side for a while before I made a decision. Obviously this was a subjective test, but the Budgie version impressed me as being more responsive than the Mate version. That was good enough for me, and despite the silly name, I've been a Budgie fan ever since.
Today I run Solus Budgie on five computers, from a very low-spec inexpensive travel laptop to a very high-spec development desktop that I built from the motherboard up, and including the computer that drives our television.
That all said, I'm interested in hearing from Mate users why they feel the way they do. Maybe I've missed something?