Haven't tried "Mate" yet. I find going with anything besides what was installed by default on the distro tends to make it less stable. Except for KDE which always seems solid, and ugly as sin.
yet many think its beautiful.
Mate was a pain in Ubuntu 12.04., tinternet wouldn't connect, various errors on opening files.
Where as Cinnamon went in a treat, simple desktop almost reminiscent of older ubuntu issues.Very editable indeed.
Still like Unity and gnome but find this rather easier on the eye.
The way Ubuntu is going I doubt I will be using it much longer.