I think IBM is on the right track with Lotus Symphony
I have found that the best way to go with software is the free stuff. I've been using GIMP instead of Photoshop and iTunes is better than any "paid-for" music management program.
The one problem is the Microsoft Office clones. There's openoffice.org (who set up a great open source word processor / spreadsheet / presentation maker) but it's a little too plain and slow to load up. I then heard about Star Office which is based off of the open office platform and sells for $80. When Google started giving it away for free I decided to try it out. It has some perks over openoffice.org but it still doesn't "pop" with visuals like Microsoft Office does.
I recently heard on a podcast about IBM's Lotus Symphony office suite. It's free so it had to be for me.
Below are some screenshots demonstrating the overall look and feel of Lotus Symphony. These are just thumbnails but you can click on them for larger images.
