I am installing a new distro on my laptop tonight and wanted to get insight from the community on which distributions would be present the least amount of grief on my device I run an Asus u46e-Bal5 with the following specs...
CPU
Intel Core i5 2410M @ 2.30GHz 43 °C
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. U46E (CPU 1) 45 °C
Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768@60Hz)
Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000
Hard Drives
699GB Western Digital WDC WD7500BPVT-80HXZT1 (SATA) 29 °C
Optical Drives
MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ892AS
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

I am hoping anyone has insight on this. I am considering Debian or Arch but I am open to any lightweight os that does not have unity or Gnome3(rather have Gnome2)

If you want efficient use of all 8GB of RAM then 64-bit. I prefer Slackware as a distro of choice but my second choice would be Debian. (You'll only have to deal with Unity in Ubuntu or its offspring)

How is the learning curve with slackware? I am going to give Debian a shot. I had no interest in Ubuntu because I was not going to be able to get around the bulk of the software. I liked Arch because it was lean. although I was intimidated by the build from the ground up approach. I need my laptop for school and cannot sit around and wait while it is not functional for a day or two

No more than with any Linux distro. A full install gives you all the major tools and software. Others can be installed from places like slackbuilds.org or others. While it doesn't do automated dependency checking it has an efficient package manager, contrary to popular belief .