> BTW, I don't use Dolphin regularly since I do most of my file
> management with bash/coreutils/etc.

that's exactly what I have done all the time, never loved konqueror (as 
filemanger), krusader oder dolphin very much: yakuake is the ultimate 
filemanager :)
(and it exists in kde3+kde4..)

btw. I think this whole thread has now more or less degraded into a discussion 
about look&feel/personal preferences which are not really the basic questions 
about trinity/kde4.
basic questions are IMHO things like:
-	kde3/trinity is undoubtably less ressource hungry than kde4, while not 
beeing as minimalist as xfce/lxde or whatever 'lightweight' alternative, 
which lack a complete set of native applications, anyway (same goes for 
razor-qt).
-	I can follow martin's arguing kde4 or especially kwin does not depend on 
akonadi/mysql/nepomuk.
theoretically: yes.
practically: no.
with all that not installed or just disabeled, there is no working kdepim 
anymore, period.

and oh, not that I would want to call akonadi/nepomuk some sort of evil 
devil's magic ;-)
I can understand the reasons for their development, but their 
introduction/push onto the users has been a real mess.
just read the forums/mailing lists about data loss/duplication/crazy cpu usage 
etc.
I myself remember having prayed after each upgrade if I would still have my 
addresses afterwards.
not even after an upgrade, but sometimes every day after startup.
until I gave up on kde4 after 4.5 or so and switched to trinity.
no more prayers about pim data, a complete desktop that _just works_ ;-)
additionally, valuable applications like quanta, which are still not available 
for kde4 (and probably never will be).
so, I'm just happy and thankful for a working trinity (yes. everything, 
including the kitchen sink :) on a modern distro (not centos or thelike, 
whick lacks everything multimedia etc.).
maybe kde 4.8 is now an option to consider again, will think about it...

werner