GCC and the Kernel seem to be pretty much at "bleeding edge versions". However, I don't plan on using KDE, so that's neutral from my point of view. Programs such as Firefox, Thunderbird, XChat, they seem to be at relatively "old" versions. I have gotten used to the features of the "bleeding edge" versions of these packages.

P.S.: I am currently experimenting with Gentoo, and it's looking good so far, I might have found a winner.

That's good that you're on to something. If you are coming from Windows or Mac I think you will notice a lack of marketing for many great distributions, so a lot of top of the line systems are grossly undersold in comparison to how much a lot of commercial software is sold. Don't let the underwhelming homepages for some distros turn you away. Pretty much all distros are build from the same open-source projects but contain slightly different selections, /etc configurations, and installation methods.
ta0kira