I think you should try 4.12 release for your self. As Morpheus has said "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the XFCE is. You have to see it for yourself." Because I'm not sure what you mean about "bulkier". Its defiantly faster and more light weight then Gnome and KDE. I've tried using Gnome and KDE many times and still where coming back to XFCE. So spin up new VM and see if this new release will work any better for you.