No, I have not tried Mint. There are quite a few who swear by it.
It is XFCE based from what I have heard.
The issue is the underlying assumptions as to OS. It is not necessary for function to have all the “stuff” that is in the Ubuntu and Debian OS.
Remove the stuff that is required by Gnome desktop and by Unity and it is a lot more efficient. Some of that is probably necessary, but not all of it.
I have thought about trying Mint. The only thing I don’t like about Xubuntu is the upgrade process. I tried to use it long ago and had a crash and had to really work to get it recovered. That is why I am probably going to re-install soon.
I will tell you same as I have told others (with at least a little experience... try KDE.. not a resource hog like Unity (Cinn is as bad as Unity, btw)...
Mint Mate is very clean from bloatware.. and if there is something you don’t like, easy to get rid of (not sure I can remember any bloatware, except for the audio player, which I didn’t like (man, I miss WinAmp :p)..
Give Mint Mate a try.. and for more flexibility in control of your computer, go KDE. A little more resource heavy, but many layers lower than many, if not most others. XfCE is hard to match, and both XF and KDE have been around for 2+ decades.
BTW.. something I didn’t mention... Mint is one of the easiest to install.. (there is a newer Distro called SolyD.. made from and around Mint.. but it doesn’t have encryption options yet, and is based purely on Debian rolling)..
I recommend that you format your partitions/HDs and pre set them up. (I made about 8 separate partions, including SWAP) before you run the installer. On the LiveCD, sometimes it is a race against time to finish the ‘fixing’ of the HD partitions to start the actual install.
It took me 3 tries last time (it would kick back to the LiveCD desktop) before I was able to get it to start the actual install.. Frustrating, but well worth it once the install gets going.
(BTW, I am still using Ext2 on everything except root)..