I just installed Mandrake 8.0.  So far I like what I see in the new KDE.  
Kmail is much improved, especially with the better support for foreign 
character sets.  (In my case I need KOI8-R for Russian.)  Konqueror is 
excellent so far.  The media player, noatun, crashes on me constantly, 
though, when I try to play .wav files.  The older version didn't.  Wonder 
what's up with that?
-- 
Mandrake 8.0, K Desktop Environment 2.1.1