Don't give up with problems. K3b is probably the best GUI burning front-end/application out there at the moment, and probly will be for some time, so instead of trying to find other programs to "fill it in" (which may be difficult to find, if you're not ok with console tools), try to fix the K3b-related problems.
So, what kind of problems were you having with it? Got all the needed KDE libraries and other stuff installed? Was it about permissions or what?
I guess Gnome Toaster/Baker (whatever it is called these days) and X-CD Roast are the best alternatives for K3b at the moment (or those I've tried), but neither of them equals K3b if you need to have a graphical front-end. Of course you can achieve what ever you need by using the actual console programs that K3b uses too, cdrecord, mkisofs and the dvd stuff. But don't give up with K3b, make it work
