DesktopBSD is getting outdated and the release cycle is becoming very long, as a result of the main developer(s) diverting their interest into other areas. PC-BSD is very active, but I am not particularly impressed with it: the desktop still looks incoherent.
Pkd_add only works in the command line in all BSD variants and is still the most stable way of installing software (and pkg_delete to uninstall it). The uniform way of installing software that way carries a large and wide appeal.