I have found it quite annoying that the major graphics card companies don't have their linux drovers anywhere near the level as their windows drivers. At least they could make a small attempt at getting some features in linux.
I have come to love KDE and find it in most ways superior to the Windows and Mac GUI's. I use Mac OS X 10.3.5, Windows XP SP2, and a Linux distro with KDE 3.3. I have found that though KDE is the best GUI I still can't get rid of the other two OSes. I have to use the Mac for school but more importantly I can't play most of the big-name games natively on Linux. I have only used wine on a couple of occasions but all of the reviews and articles agree that using games on wine requires a fair amount ...
Mandrake is what I like to use. It comes with a skin preinstalled that I can't ever get to compile and it has many nice features.