The problems in KDE 4.0 & 4.1 is long gone. It was at 3.5.x level around 4.6, and now it's just smooth and invisible. You can surely give another try.
replyQt is now its own company, namely Qt Group. Wikipedia quotes:
> In 2018, the company had 5,000 customers. Approximately 80% of the Fortune 500 companies are customers of Qt Group.[22]
So it's self-sustaining now.
AFAIK, KDE is still mostly volunteer work, but the way they develop software is pretty robust.
Valve has been contracting KDE devs to fix bugs and add features for years now, as KDE is the desktop environment on SteamOS.
replyGood to know, thanks. I was more involved in KDE in the past years, but I don't have that amount of time now, so I missed these things, I believe.
replyHowever, KDE rocks. My colleagues called me "a maniac" once when they see how I use that thing (i.e. Dolphin + KIO + fast window switches + multiple desktops).