Hi,
I am using KDE for a quite limited reasons (given at the end of this post). I absolutely do not want the 'brand new never ever seen user desktop experience', and in fact I am quite annoyed by all these things (Activity, Nepomuk desktop search, PIM, etc). In my interpretation, this 'incredible desktop experience' is only crashing applications, and annoying popups. I would be very happy to see a very simple switch to some 'basic' mode, where kde merely functions as a window manager, without all that overhead that comes with by default.

The reasons why I am still using KDE (from time to time I test the other desktops to see whether they also provide all these features, and I will switch as soon as they do):
- dolphin being able to handle all protocols I need to access my remote content (ftp, webdavs, bluetooth)
- gwenview being able to show pictures as well as movies - perfect for a presentation from a trip, for example, where I shot both.
- being able to move a maximized window (aka 'put border around maximized windows')

I will make another post (i.e. a looong list of bugs and crashes) somewhere else.

Well, you can use another DE/window manager (try e.g. XFCE or OpenBox) and still run KDE application. Or you can just use KWin (although I'm not sure how to do that - a Google search should give you some information).

you can use XFCE desktop manager (select it in Kdm) and once loaded change the window manager to Kwin (kwin --restart)