The latest version, 11.04, has finally pushed me over the edge. I won't go into details, but will just say, for me, it sucks big time. It seems to me the last few distributions have moved closer and closer to looking like a MS product.
I am not looking for a argument or even a discussion here.
What I am looking for is a replacement. 10.10 is good until April 2012, so I still have a year to seek out something. This gives me ample time to download and test a number of the available distributions.

There you go
http://www.linuxmint.com/
http://www.salixos.org/
http://www.mepis.org/

What do you want in a distro? What is your skill level? Love of the command line/GUI? Need to have the latest software? Emphasis on stability? Taste for eye candy? Hardware power?

In order to answer your question we need extra information..for example what you look for in distribution, why you don't like new Ubuntu, what is your preferred difficulty level, what method you like to work with, do you like apt and .deb packages or like other..etc. It's not that simple. Basicaly if you ask what is best without mentioning extra details you might aswell try ask how to predict random number with 100% accuracy or what is result if you divide by 0 - not possible to answer without rising extra questions.

These are all perfect questions to be asking yourself.

You should also look at the distros listed under catkins name.

I am a fairly long time tester of Ubuntu pre-release OS' and know exactly what you are saying. Obviously a lot of folks disagree with us.

My personal answer is Debian testing with the Liquorix kernel installed.

You may also want to look at Fedora and, my personal favorite from the RH branch, Mandriva (PCLOS is based on Mandriva).

I would recomment Mint or Fedora if you're a beginner/intermediate, or Arch if you're advanced or really want to learn.

If you liked Ubuntu BEFORE the recent changes and feel ready (and if yuo have any patience left, I would not blame you if you have run out), you COULD go Debian straight up.

Debian is, after all, the parent that nurtured all of these children. It is still growing and changing, but taking a more conservative approach and breaking fewer eggs than the Ubuntu crowd.

It is very mature, and allows more customization without compiling from source than any other distribution I have tried (and that is a LOT).

Just a thought.

Just wanted to mention Fedora isn't quite for beginners..however there is Fusion linux based on Fedora which should do the trick. It does same to Fedora what Mint does to Ubuntu or Ubuntu to Debian - makes it newbie-friendly|working out of the box.

Agree with the above that I can't recommend a distro without knowing what you like/dislike about Ubuntu.

A lot of users dislike the new Unity interface in 11.04. If that's your reason for leaving Ubuntu (just a guess), then I recommend Xubuntu. It's Ubuntu with the Xfce desktop environment. The current version of Xfce has most of the good qualities of "classic" Gnome, in a lightweight, fast desktop environment. Kubuntu (KDE) and Lubuntu (LXDE) are also strong candidates.

I agree with your point about Xubuntu and Lubuntu, even Kubuntu if you can stand KDE.

I think, however, that the OP sees the direction Canonical is headed as wrong. I do to. This will, in time, effect the other members of the Ubuntu family.

Folks voting with their feet now MAY bring those bozos to their senses before it is too late.

Unity is simply the latest symptom to crop up. They have had poor relations with upstream for a long time and getting worse. Their copyright policy is just stupid in the FOSS world. I believe a lot of the folks upstream that should be getting help from Ubuntu are not because they do not want that type of copyright on portions of their work.

Debian is not happy with them, Gnome is not thrilled, Gimp has been dropped (lack of space or demand my butt) and kind of liked that move. These things should, by now, have let those folks know that something is wrong with them.

But no, the problem is every one else in the Linux community. They just do not appreciate the perfection of the supreme folks of Canonical.

I think Gnome is brilliant, I've tried KDE and didn't like it, I've also tried lots of different distros over the years before I settled on Ubuntu but oh my word how much do I hate 11.04! I just want my Gnome back, can I get this or do I switch to Debian (very possible) or try Fedora again?

I don't like the bar at the left, it only seems to appear when it feels like it, I just had Evolution open and had to do a mouse pointer dance to try to get the bar to appear. I am aware that these are first impressions and that given time I may come to love it but I installed this straight onto my work laptop and I didn't expect to be faced with this.

It also seems really slow to do things, it's not my machine because it's a good spec but even dragging icons around the desktop seems choppy.

Simple really, Debian!

LinuxMint, of course.

I know nothing about linuxmint, I was really set on Debian, can you give me some info on Mint

Mint is a distro based on Ubuntu. I am not impressed.

I think that they are having trouble with ubuntu anyway. They have come up with a Debian based edition (LMDE).

Best thing to do is get some RW CDs or DVDs and give some of the buggers a whirl.