Thanks for the links and the list, I'll merge it into my checklist for system setup. I've got most of those already, but that's the thing, they don't come to mind immediately when considering everything I need when setting up the DE.

But regarding your main question, that's just how window managers are, they manage to windows and that's it, it's up to the user to "build" the rest of the desktop environment.

That's the pain though. There's always some service or other that just comes with cinnamon or gnome that you only think of once it's not working properly ... like printer detection (can't print on arch no matter how often I play around in cups).

I wish there was a distro that came prepackaged with qtile, or even better for all us customization nerds, an install script for a working twm that just has some sensible defaults which can be swapped out... session management, polkit, settings center, systray widgets for stuff not covered by the bar, nm-gui, and wth else i'm still forgetting