Going to give it another try :)

Lubuntu: very buggy, like having the Ubuntuness because that is where I learned GNU/Linux (baby duck syndrome?) Mint LXDE: liked it, only tried it for a few minutes wattOS: really like it so far, only issues have been installation trouble on old machines

Suggestion related to power savings: maybe we could have a few more "dark" theme options for lxde and openbox. I like to keep things as dark as possible on my traveling laptop to reduce display drain on the battery. I haven't done any tests, but I assume it helps. Comment about E17: I tried and tried to like E17. I wanted to like it, I think it's impressive, but I can't stand it. E17 is more about looks and less about getting things done to me. Navigation and menu options were not intuitive. I've read comments that it is lighter on resources than lxde, and also lxde can be lighter. I'd give it another shot if it's used but I'm really digging LXDE. Simple, intuitive, configurable. I also suggest a text based installer. Have encountered two old boxes that repeatedly crashed on the graphical install. Had to go with Ubuntu minimal install and LXDE.