I usually prefer stand alone WM's like Ion, WMI, or ratposion, but if I do employ an environment, XFCE 4.2 beta (seems stable enough to me...) is leanest and fastest while still offering simplicity and some eye candy.
KDE and Gnome are both fine choices for those making the switch from Micro$loth interface. Both reasonablu "intuitive" for those moving over from the windows world.

Xfce4 is my favorite de. I liked gnome and kde, probably kde a little more than gnome, but not as much as I like Xfce4.

KDE.

Woohoo! That was on the top of my feature wishlist. :)

I am a non-expert newbie who installed Vector Linux from a downloaded ISO a few months ago.I have been using IceWM ever since with nary a problem or a grumble.So (excuse my ignorance please)whichever DE this means I am using ,it gets my vote. (KDE ?)

KDE

KDE - more intuitive.. Gnome --- well if I have too

I've always found Gnome to be the more professional, "held-together" looking of the environments. KDE has always looked a little too toy-like to me. I realize that that's part of the fun, but I love Gnome, especially now with 2.8.

GNOME all the way, baby!

Using Ice means you're not using a DE at all (unless you specifically plug it into one). So go vote for Ice in the Window Manager poll. :)

best desktop environment
 

It's been a good year for the desktop. KDE integration is getting tighter. Gnome 2.8 took a big leap in completeness and elegance. But I think the winner must be Xfce -- utterly configurable by mouse, a rich combination of themes, a slick installer, and so fast, even on lower end hardware, it must be seen to be believed. It loaded Openoffice four times faster than Gnome or KDE.

I've never tried XFCE 4, I've only been around KDE & GNOME. I liked KDE at first, but I switched to GNOME because of those sexy movable panels!

Gnome is quite good. I used to use KDE primarily, but it's way slow compared to Gnome.

KDE for me

I like ttys.
on gui gnome is good1.