Well, GDM tends to handle a lot of initialization that it shouldn't be the one doing, using a distribution that doesn't assume you're using GNOME may help with this.
About the transitions supposedly adding complexity; I don't know about you, but systemd, for example, has greatly simplified configuration and management of services, mountpoints, timers, and all sorts of things.
I use awesome in Fedora 17 on some early-2010 entry-level consumer intel hardware, everything is zippy, easy to configure, and doesn't break on me all the time; I feel bad for you man.
About the transitions supposedly adding complexity; I don't know about you, but systemd, for example, has greatly simplified configuration and management of services, mountpoints, timers, and all sorts of things.
I use awesome in Fedora 17 on some early-2010 entry-level consumer intel hardware, everything is zippy, easy to configure, and doesn't break on me all the time; I feel bad for you man.