Sorry for the delayef answer (still short of new to lemmy).
Basically you crasped the core of Icewm: super minimalistic. But it does everything I need.
Over the years, I have looked into fancier desktop environments, but they all seem unnecessary overloaded to me.
Maybe a short work flow clarifies how I use icewm:
- After login, the startup script starts all programs that I regularly need.
- Shortcuts to resize windows and move them to different desktops and circle through open windows.
- Shortcuts to open more common programs
- For everything else: konsole
Because I started using it when it still was called mozilla and never got a reason to switch.