Hello all,
Following Tarun's advice, I DLed and installed the free Mandriva 2006 distribution. Here's just a quick feedback for everyone's benefit. If you're looking to change Distro, have a look.

In brief, I'm more than pleased with it. It is very user-friendly, has some new Windows-esque features, it also seems more polished than previous versions. While, It does still suffer from some of the old multimedia issues (in part due to proprietary rights on certain multimedia formats), it's got all the essential applications for most IT needs. It's got a great look and feel, and it runs beautifully.

More detail?
Pros:

• the update/add RPM features of Mandriva are among its real strengths - this is nothing new to Mandriva, but it's worth mentioning just because it makes life so easy! Whatever you install, it automatically puts in just the right place and in the right part of the menus with all the right links, AND it takes care of all dependencies. And when an update comes out, it'll sort that too! No hassle - it's great!
  
• Newer versions of KDE and various applications :) , and a new Kernel that makes Wireless Networking easier and more powerful (according to the descriptions, I don't use this! :z)
  
• Improved interactive firewall (apparently - I'm still waiting for a hacker to test this!*)
• Some Windows-esque organising files in the Home directory (Documents, Downloads, Music, Video, etc). Good for newbs, Windows converts and the terminally disorganised!
• Generally improved look and feel, with no noticeable loss in speed and performance.
  

Cons:

• No Open Office 2?!? I've had this on my Windows partition for nearly a year! Mandriva are still holding this back for paying customers (although I guess you could install it yourself if you really wanted)
• Multimedia is still problematic. CDs are sporadic, and I still haven't got KsCD working. Most DVDs are encrypted and so will require an extra library to be Downloaded (legal?) On the plus side, MP3s, WAVs and most DLed multimedia formats work flawlessly.
  
• It took an absolute AGE to update (from Mandriva 2005)!! Seriously, leave aside a few hours for this.

That's it. Unless you want the solution to one technical bug I had, you can stop reading... NOW!
Cheers,
Brad

ps.
Technical Bug: For some reason, the new Mandriva set up my mouse wrongly, with the mouse wheel giving a 'Next Page', 'Last Page' navigator signal, rather than the usual scrolling up and down. Nothing within KDE was able to fix this, I only solved it by editing the xorg.conf file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf).
In the section labelled "InputDevice", I changed the line reading:-
---    Option "Protocol" "IPS/2"
to
---    Option "Protocol" "explorerPS/2"
This worked like a charm.

* any hackers who may be reading, this is NOT an invitation!!!