“To get an “usable” desktop for my work needs, it took 5-6x more time to configure the interface than in Gnome, there are LOTS of options everywhere.”
That’s because you’re Gnome user. When I’ve installed Gnome it took 5-6x more time to configure the interface then in KDE (for me). There a lots of options in Gnome to. That’s the beauty of Linux – you can setup (almost) anything to work on your way.

OSX gets it’s own usability, Windows hets it’s own… it’s a choice. Anyway, I like your rewiev.

But alt+f2 (krunner) is currently the best way to launch apps or open documents.

And, like sebas already said, I’m attaching Alt+space to KRunner (usually Alt+F3). KRunner is capable of more than finding apps. Nepomuk searches and simple other queries (check the “?” button and plugin options!). I’m using KRunner all the time.

My last tip: I was using Alt+Tab a lot, but attached “Toggle Present Windows” to the Meta + Tab combination. Good to know is this toggle function is similar to Exposé of the Mac *and* it has the ability to filter. So press Meta + Alt and start typing the window you need. It’s much faster than hitting Alt+Tab multiple times or using the mouse to navigate

The KDE keyboard shortcuts are more inspired by Window$ than Mac. The default menu shortcut (which is Alt+F1, not Ctrl+F1) is the one Window$ uses (as an alternative to the Window$ key, but in KDE, we can’t use the same key as a key by itself and as a modifier, so it’s set to be only a modifier (used in several shortcuts), and so Alt+F1 is the only shortcut set for the menu).

- Remove the activation delay on the screen edges detection. I can’t really see what you want to achieve by keeping it at 350ms by default. It induces a “sluggish-feel” delay for the ones who use the screen edge detection while not preventing at all an accidental edge detection for the people who don’t.
- As I stated in http://www.alphatek.info/2009/11/01/fedora-configure-the-kde-dashboard-to-behave-like-in-osx/, the dashboard doesn’t behave like I think it should.
- The Nepomuk search results are available in Dolphin, but not in the kickoff search box as I firs expected. Again, I was looking for an apple Spotlight experience: an unique search box to launch programs and files. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_%28software%29
- In the same order, I changed the keyboard shortcut to open kickoff from Ctrl+F1 to Alt+Space. This is the shortcut OSX is using to launch Spotlight. The thinking behind that is that to launch an application, I hit these easy accessible keys, start to type the first letters of an application and it launches the application. It’s something I do often, without having to touch the mouse or click.

Other things I noticed:
- The Nepomuk service constantly spams messages in my “Notifications and Jobs” area, it tells me every time it stops/starts to index files, that is around 50x every hour. This doesn’t sound right and I don’t know how to tell it to shut up
- In Cashew, how the hell was I supposed to know that clicking on “Zoom Out” would lead me to the desktop activity/dashboard configuration screen? See http://www.alphatek.info/2009/11/01/fedora-configure-the-kde-dashboard-to-behave-like-in-osx/ again.

As you may notice, I’m referring to OSX quite a lot. Don’t take it in a bad way, but they do a lot of things very right from an usability standpoint. The technology is clearly there in KDE, only not used at its full potential. All these things may seem trivial to you, but as a new user it’s not.