To you sir I recommend the newest version of gnome. (I swear they made that out of our reasoning exactly.
I've been an Xfce4 user for a couple of years now. Sometimes I don't even start my X server, and just do things from my TTY. It's really quite satisfying.
I use xfce4, and enable the icons for minimised windows but other than that; no desktop. Of course, I use the shell for file management and the answer may have been different if it were "how much crap is in your home folder".
Well, there's a question. My home folder is the definition of clutter. Except my "Music" folder, for some reason.
The difficult we do today; the impossible takes a little longer.
