Other distros tried

Snowlinux 4

I am not sure why I wanted to try it... maybe because it's Debian-based and I felt lucky... By the way, they also plan to release Ubuntu-version in May 2013.

Well, I wasn't lucky – it didn't boot to Live at all. That's that.

SolusOs 1.2

SolusOs is Debian-stable-based distro, but has updated apps and also all non-free stuff included. They are also of those who try to preserve Gnome 2 look. They are forking Gnome 3 fallback and build their own desktop on it, called Consort. So the goal seems similar to Cinnamon – Gnome 2 look and Gnome 3 codebase.

Live session came up without any problems. And I quite liked what I saw. Except main menu, which was modernized – maybe comparable to Mint-menu. But with marked bonus of resizeability.
There was sluggishness, and some bugs.

I think I would have kept Solus – if I haven't had Xubuntu already. But – it's definitely on my spring second-round-test list when ver 2 appears.

Zorin OS 6 Live

It's based on Ubuntu and has Compiz installed by default. Desktop is heavily modified Gnome 3.They are saying that their goal is to provide an experience as close to MS Windows as possible.

For me it means No Way. As already mentioned – what for? Why to swap Windows for fake-Windows? Beacuse it's free? First, Linux is NOT free in meaning that you waste time(is money) with its bugs and quirks; and second, Full Zorin OS is not free at all, you have to buy it. Not that paying for good product is no-no for me, on the contrary – workforce with salary is less lazy and chaotic as a rule, BUT – I am not going to buy erzats-Windows, that's for sure.

Anyway – It's blingily elegant, has interesting docker/panel mixture, has strange porridge of settings and at least Live session was stable and without obvious bugs. If one wants to play Windows-on-Linux, Zorin is recommended. 

Fedora 18 xfce Live
Fedora is free pre-release version of Red Hat - Linux distro with yearly revenue billion dollars plus! Currently the only one.

The name Fedora associates also with: very progressive development-wise; and moronic 'only free stuff' stand. I do not have really any opinion if Fedora is frontiers-pushing, but – they definitely release their distros without any whiff of capitalist shit: no codecs, no flash, no ttf-s, no anything tainted.

Which means to normal user that all those things had to be downloaded & installed from other places. Additional hassle.

Fedora Live Xfce booted alright – and didn't leave me any impression whatsoever. Xfce was totally of stock, no customization at all.

Also – release 18 has quite a few bad reviews about it... Dedoimedo has one of such. Google helps to find more.

The test ended there, without any interest to install.

Ubuntu with Trinity Live

Trinity is old KDE 3.x slightly refreshed. That is – when KDE decided to create very much different version 4 (which was also horrible bug-pile at the beginning), there naturally appeared people who decided to preserve old version 3, and to modernize it in less dramatic way.

But it bloody is archaic-looking still! With various glitches here and there. It has strange types of panels and hodge-podge of settings.

And it definitely has very few devs working with it. For me it left zombie-like impression – jerking but not really alive.

Stella 6.3

...Is stright clone of CentOS. Means, it's super stable if a bit outdated distro.

Stella differs of her parent by added multimedia support, added repos and slightly customized desktop (cute old Gnome 2).

Live ISO booted nicely, classic DE made me feel all fuzzy. HDD-install also went without problems. Then I installed nvidia driver, rebooted – and it hung. Well, format it was, a pity.

Thought about trying OpenSuse again, but didn't find enough motivation.

Distro-hopping stopped with that and I dived seriously into Xfce.