They're simpler than desktop environments in every way.
I have found that I use 10% and absolutely require 0% of the larger DEs' features, so using a simpler system makes sense.
Your use case seems like it would work well with tiling window managers, since you can just arrange things so that you have a single fullscreen window per workspace.
I used Xfce and switched to i3. I can't imagine going back whenever I'm in Linux. My work environment is MacOS and its frustrating having to manually move windows and like others have said is just plain clunky after having used a tiling window manager. It did take a bit of time to get used to i3, but once I did it was glorious.
I have found that I use 10% and absolutely require 0% of the larger DEs' features, so using a simpler system makes sense.
Your use case seems like it would work well with tiling window managers, since you can just arrange things so that you have a single fullscreen window per workspace.