VLC is indeed superior in comparison with Totem but it does not integrate nicely into GNOME as Totem would.
MPV is also a very capable player. There is even an GTK frontend which obeys GNOME HIG and which is called gnome-mpv[0]. Maybe it would be a nice pick for the default video player.
I never really understood this thing about integration into the desktop environment. It stops at the window manager level for me and the overall style of widgets. I don't notice the difference between QT and GTK applications. The only important thing is that they work.
What I see instead is desktop environments reinventing the wheels to have their own versions of applications that often somebody else did better and work across DEs anyway. Either they have too many developers or they can't make them focus on the core. I understand that it's difficult to make people do things they dont want if they're working for free, but are they?
I checked this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Core_Applications and I think I never used any application in the conversation and world categories since I've been using Gnome (2009). Not many of the others too. They are just inferior to other native applications or web services or my phone.
The subtitle syncing hotkeys alone are a godsend. It blows all over players out of the water when playing streams under non perfect network conditions. Not to mention the best fast forward / rewind experience, something I only had experienced with the original XBMC.
