I've heard good things about Pinguy from one of my friends who was in exactly the same "Ubuntu are screwing everything up!" mentality.
Basically, it's built on the Ubuntu base, but by someone with a bit more sense than Canonical! I'm going to be trying it some time soon.
Another alternative is Linux Mint, which is again built on Ubuntu, but it's more of Ubuntu + extras, wheras Pinguy is Ubuntu - cruft + extras.
I personally would recommend Pinguy OS . It's pretty much a custom build of Ubuntu with lots of bells and whistles and a great amount of polishing done. It's simple, absurdly clean, full of features and extras , and support wise most anything that applies to Ubuntu applies with PinguyOS. It still however manages to be pretty snappy on a 1.6ghz atom with a gig of ram.
From the website:
"PinguyOS is very much designed for people who are new to the Linux world, many people coming from both a Windows or a Mac background will find plenty of familiar features along with some new ones that aren’t available in either Windows or Mac."