I used to love XFCE for being a light weight alternative to Gnome and KDE. The last time I used it on a linux system it had gotten quite a bit porkier.
Can anyone speak to if the new release has slimmed things down or is it still, at least to my reading, becoming bulkier still?
I think you should try 4.12 release for your self. As Morpheus has said "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the XFCE is. You have to see it for yourself." Because I'm not sure what you mean about "bulkier". Its defiantly faster and more light weight then Gnome and KDE. I've tried using Gnome and KDE many times and still where coming back to XFCE. So spin up new VM and see if this new release will work any better for you.
XFCE is definitely still a lot lighter weight than gnome or KDE. I think its continuing to fit its niche well, something between the main DE's (gnome/kde/unity) and lighter stuff like lxde
Can anyone speak to if the new release has slimmed things down or is it still, at least to my reading, becoming bulkier still?