I was thinking to give XFCE a swirl

[Storm]

I never really gave XFCE a fair chance, only used it for testing my stuff on it. I was thinking setting it up a lá Mac layout with my ownn icons.
So using Plank as launcher and moving the main panel up.

But...

I like big icons in the menu, so what options do I have for that?
What do you think is a "MUST" to have on XFCE?

Or should I go Budgie DE?

[Aravisian]

@Storm

I like big icons in the menu, so what options do I have for that?
What do you think is a "MUST" to have on XFCE?

On XFCE4-Panel:

sudo apt install xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin

Add to Panel.
Right click the App Menu icon and in Appearance tab (First tab), set the Icon size for Application Icon Size and Category Icon Size.

Exploring all the other options should give you a lot of stuff to try. And you can use the handle in the top right corner to resize the menu.

I do not know about Plank. Personally, I do not use additional panel/docks since the XFCE panel is so customizable.

[Storm]

I guess I fire up Zorin lite and running it live to mess with it first.

[4box]

@Aravisian

Right click the App Menu icon and in Appearance tab (First tab), set the Icon size for Application Icon Size and Category Icon Size.

Me: "Hmmm...", tries Very Large -"WHOA! That's... very large"

Actually now that I'm experimenting with KDE Connect to use the phone as a remote control when the laptop is connected to the TV, large icons could useful for controlling the PC from 3 metres away.

Which leads back to the original question of "must haves" on XFCE.

• KDE Connect (regular Zorin comes with Zorin Connect, but in Lite, if you want remote control you need to install KDE Connect yourself).
• Nemo... or maybe some {PPA or backport?} of the latest Thunar. Why? I find that the default search tool in XFCE, Catfish, excels at not finding files. Nemo and Thunar from XFCE 4.18 (ZL 16.2 has XFCE 4.16) have built-in search. @Aravisian showed me how to get Nemo.
• Whisker Menu, as @Aravisian mentioned above. And not just for the gigantic icons!
• XFCE doesn't have all those Gnome extensions, so maybe Conky Manager + various conkies to help get some extras on the desktop.
• Panel > Add New Items. Explore what things you might find handy there. Personally I've added the Weather applet. A lot easier than trying to adapt a (working) weather Conky to my liking.

Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head that are specifically about Zorin Lite / XFCE compared to regular Zorin.

[Aravisian]

@4box

Thunar from XFCE 4.18

...has massive improvements.

You can also install and use Nautilus on XFCE just fine.

sudo apt install nautilus

Nemo can be made to look almost just like Nautilus - I wrote about it on the forum sometime back with screenshots.

When I first tried out XFCE, I did not like it. Most of that comes down to my perceptions and preconceptions.
Once I gave it a fair chance, I realized it was highly adaptable and configurable as well as solid. Theming it is consistent, easy and produces really beautiful results.
I don't ever get the "Oops, something has gone wrong" that I used to get on Gnome.