I run ubuntu on my asus netbook. Because the screen is so small, I like to run everything maximized, so I really don't mind unity. Unforunately, VNC server (vino) doesn't work properly in unity. I switched to unity 2D which fixes the VNC issue, but then I can't shrink the icons in the launcher (there's a hack to show smaller icons, but the launcher still doesn't resize to be the same width as the icons).

I think I'll try LXDE next. I like ubuntu because there is a lot of documentation in the google index. I feel like it's always best to have the largest user base because then it is most likely someone else has already encountered your issue. It's too bad that there's such a split now on the default desktop environment.

Also, it's too bad that X is so far behind windows and OSX. On my home machine I use a laptop with 2 external screens, one is connected through a displayLink USB device. In windows it was plug and play. I'm sure that under Linux it will take me a really long time to set it up and even then it won't work as good. It's too bad because I really would prefer to only run windows in a VM.