seanragout Sooooooo...that's a bit daunting and hard work for your average Joe user. It SHOULD be just a case of selecting your chosen theme and clicking a button..Nope not for me its limiting choice by the user and having them 'make do' not the best of enticements to using a system.
The situation we are in is a classic example of both the strengths and weakness of the Linux community-based development model, a model in which small teams of enthusiasts about this or that band together to develop a theme, an app or a tool of some sort or other. Themes, apps and tools come and go and are maintained (or not) depending on the size, talent and commitment of the teams responsible for them, and there is little coordination between teams, which results in the upsteam/downstream/collaboration issues we are now seeing clustered around Gnome 42 and GDK 4.
It isn't the first time we've seen this, and it won't be the last. The planned changes to Gnome and GDK were announced well in advance (Josh, for example, was writing about the coming changes and the implications for Budgie last fall, and many others were as well.) As always seems to be the case, some teams (like BuddiesOfBudgie, Solus and Ubuntu Budgie) took proactive steps to mitigate the disruption, but others got caught flat-footed because, for one reason or another, they didn't see what was coming or prepare for it. In our community, that is the way it has been for decades, and I don't see that changing in the future.
As @Lucien_Lachance noted in his comment, "its probably just a matter of time before the themers get this fixed". Some, anyway. The themes that don't accommodate change will die off. If I've learned nothing else over the course of many years experience with IT management, it is a lot easier to start something than to keep it going.
seanragout Function is obviously more important than style but style does matter as well. Linux is freedom to chose what you want and how you want it until its not (looking at you libawaita and gnome) that's imposing choice on the users to put up or shut up
I don't think that development communities, upstream or downstream, have an obligation to accommodate every possible permutation. Gnome, GDK and other relevant communities elected to develop in a particular direction, were transparent about the direction, and notified the community well in advance. As far as I am concerned, that's enough.