Sure, all you mentioned about KDE4 are indeed drawbacks that hold me
from using it. What I expect to be done for KDE4 is some 'Classic
mode' (like for Windows), that will rip those horrible kid visuals and
needless daemons. Also merge of window manager features from 3 to 4 is
a must to decide KDE4 more or less serious shell.

Sorry, I don't want to repeat in details why TDE is wrong. You can
find it in bugs (open and closed) and here on the list by searching
for my name.

Figuratively speaking, they try to move a mountain to build a straight
way through when it is satisfactory to build a road over that
mountain. They will never have enough resources to move the mountain,
the project will always be half-finished and half-working. In fact,
all this tremendous work is needless. And moreover, it is even worse
than this simple image. Moving a mountain is finite job and what they
do is doom of endless support. They will never have time for real
features and bug-fixes. Moreover, I'm afraid that they will only make
more bugs.

Unfortunately, both of these projects KDE4 and TDE hadn't followed
real users expectations.