Allegedly, on or about 24 March 2017, Rick Stevens sent:
I have Xfce because I could make it look like Gnome2 and still customize it to a reasonable extent. I guess MATE is popular with Gnome2ites as well (such as Tim), though I've not used it.
If what you're using works, stick with it. But if you're doing a lot of work to make XFCE behave like Gnome 2, then give MATE a try. It's virtually Gnome 2, to start off with.
I tried XFCE a long time ago, didn't like it then, but it's probably changed. I had trouble with it and pulseaudio, it wasn't good at auto-mounting, I didn't like that dock that you couldn't get rid of, I disliked the lack of an organised/categorised top-of-screen menu, and the lack of windowing tab bar at the bottom.
But, I think the biggest swaying factor for me using MATE, is that most of the programs that I use tend to be gnome, or gnome-centric. So it makes sense to avoid a mish-mash desktop.