I had the same annoyance of lots of files in my home directory. This is what I did.

• Create a directory ~/+Files.
• Move all of my(not the annoying config files) files to this new directory.
• Configure interactive shell, and dolphin to start in this new directory.
• Create a directory for config files ~/+Files/config
• Move config files to this new directory, and sym-link to them.

Now by home directory contains only sym-links and +Files directory. From time-to-time I then inspect my home directory for cruft that has turned up. And decide what to do with it: move to config, remove, …

I had the same annoyance of lots of files in my home directory. This is what I did.

• Create a directory ~/+Files.
• Move all of my(not the annoying config files) files to this new directory.
• Configure interactive shell, and dolphin to start in this new directory.
• Create a directory for config files ~/+Files/config
• Move config files to this new directory, and sym-link to them.

Now my home directory contains only sym-links and +Files directory. From time-to-time I then inspect my home directory for cruft that has turned up. And decide what to do with it: move to config, remove, …