It sounds like you’d be better off with a DE or WM that isn’t gnome. The GNOME Project has been progressively sticking more and more of the customization features of the DE behind either gnome tweaks or the command line, likely to unify the experience for all users and improve the ability to provide support.
Personally, as far as gnome-based DEs are concerned, I prefer cinnamon, but I’m fine running Mint to just have it come pre-installed. I don’t know what dependencies it pulls in now if you install it standalone from Mint.
I remember when Chrome released and it was a hot mess performance wise. I haven’t used it since and it doesn’t seem like I’m missing anything.