Unshakable

It’s horrible that I can immediately recognise Scomo by his ever-balding head.

I think your assessment of Linux Mint with XFCE is a really good first choice. Cinnamon could be worth a try though as the UI is a bit more modern looking. I’m biased towards XFCE because it looks fine and runs extremely well on old laptops. I’ve got a laptop from 2008 running it (it’s my only computer that still has a disc drive) and it’s honestly a usable machine again.

I think XFCE Mint is a good experience. That said, depending on how W10 has been running for you, Cinnamon won’t be worse than that.

Gnome has the apple philosophy that the user conforms to technology, not the other way around.