Ever tried Lubuntu? Fast, nice-looking and also works great installed on a USB stick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lru-T41sEvs
No, I haven’t.
My first Linux install was in 1994. It was a version of Slackware running under UMSDOS.
Over the years I ran several version of Mandrake and Redhat; Xubuntu and now Debian. I’ve been running XFCE GUI since Redhat 8 came out. It was not a part of the basic install package then, I set it up with Gnome and then added XFCE. It was amazing how light it was. I have used a number of light GUI packages before.