Anyone use a Windows shell besides explorer?

I have been hearing things that there are shells out there that make XP run smoother than the explorer shell. I am about to take the plunge into litestep but knowing very little about these types of things I am concerned. Are any of you running a shell like BB4 win or litestep?

I use ACDsee. When I work on someone else’s computer is drives me nuts having to us the MS interface. MS: when being 10 years behind the times is taking things too fast.

I also use Cygwin for a CLI. tcsh rulez!

Well I took the plunge but ended up reverting back to explorer. Its a shame too, I really liked the customizability and increased features but there just wasn’t enough documentation to figure out how to easily customize stuff. I ended up with half my task bar a different size, my windows didn’t take up all the availible space and it was generally just a mess.