If you need the data, a solid state recovery specialist may be able to assist you. Surely won't be cheap as it generally requires reading directly from the flash through soldered wires or jigs.
At this point every hiring manager out there is aware of Amazon's terrible workplace practices. Put on the resume don't say you got fired. When you get asked why you left, tell the truth of the situation. Some managers won't want you because if it sure, but the intelligent ones can see the tree through the forest and those are the places you want to work anyway.
It's sub optimal but that's what happens when you join a place like Amazon.
You need to have libgtk installed to run gimp. It would be like running a Qt app (what KDE environment and apps are based on, among other apps like OBS, roblox, google earth, virtual box, etc) without libQt. You couldn't because the dependencies aren't installed.
Of course nothing is stopping you from running both, except maybe memory limitations on low ram hardware.
Or you don't install it as you suggest and use alternative apps.
I don't use KDE any more so I don't follow closely. But it used to be significantly slower. I recall some years back they were working to change KDE loading of gtk libs but I'm not sure what came out of that
Linux loads the gtk libs when your desktop starts because it's a major component of gnu/gnome. Windows doesn't until you launch an app that would use it. It's not a small library.
Conversely you even remotely mention the CCP negatively you'll instantly get a disproportionate amount of down votes and comments compared to how active the thread is
It's a widget so yes. ..and the search bar is part of the launcher where you're free to use any launcher you want