Hi, @gkr09, welcome to the Ubuntu Budgie forum.
The Budgie team (programmers/ users) actually went a - really - long way to have Budgie look and feel like it does today. Keeping the Plank Dock or not, for example - has been discussed here for some time and the community has decided in favor of it. The same happened with using Nemo over Nautilus. You can follow that discussion here.
It will be hard to have the whole project be adapted to the likings of an individual user.
But if you narrow down your ideas and the community picks up on them, there is always a good chance that some things will be implemented.
One thing that seems questionable to me is positioning Budgie as a Gnome-Hater-Distro. That seems focussing on negativity. I think a project should be based on the things it is good at, and not what another is awful at.