You have noticed the difference between 8.04's Kubuntu and 8.10's. It now uses
KDE 4 instead of KDE 3.5. There are major differences in the look and feel, the
core and the configuration.

The problem right now is that KDE4 is a work in progress, When I started using
it, it was big and ugly with few options to change it. Now it is much more
refined and more configurable, however some features are still to come. The ones
that you want are not out yet. See:
ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-924226.html

Be patient. It works great now. It just is more like Gnome than KDE in that it
isn't as configurable as KDE 3.5. That is changing all of the time.