KDE annoys the hell out of me too.
But every time I try some alternative, I end up coming back, despite the bazaar number of things you /can't/ customise (namely many of the things I actually care about, like colours and ranges for network throughput graphs on the panel). Been with KDE since 2.early. Some things improve, some get worse :-/
(I also use MacOS and WinXP and Win7 at work and don't much care for them either - Win7 surprisingly has the best UI for my usage out of that lot!)