I did consider upgrading to 11.04 and tried a live CD, Didn't like Unity so i
will stick with 10.04 for the time being. However i have tried LXDE desktop as
used in Lubuntu, it is a lot quicker than Gnome or KDE and you should have no
problems using the apps from Gnome (or KDE) with it.

Also Xubuntu is a good alternative. It has mature nicely. In my, I don't
play tech support on TV... or professionally, I am coasting with 10.04 on
all my supported friends and family desktops. They all use Gnome 2.x. My
toss up at this point is Lubuntu vs Xubuntu. No worries. It's a while to
the next LTS.

Just found a rather interesting article on Daily Rotation.
www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3

I think they put the whole thing in perspective in one reply:

"I don't want a cellphone/pad environment on my laptop/desktop."

I've got an android phone, and just for grins I looked at screen animations.
That's what the graphics in the most demanding desktop in Meerkat reminded me
of. I won't use any of those android screensavers,
I have a very nice picture of Monitor and Merrimac buttes in Utah, with a little
green android standing in the foreground.

i switched to lubuntu it is light runs well on older hardware

Lubuntu is Ubuntu with LXDE.
LXDE is easy to install, then all yu have to do is log out from Unity or
whatever and log into LXDE.
I am running Mint with Gnome right now.