I think you're wrong on a few points.
The article was talking about desktop environments (even if the article was mis-named).
It's not talking about developments in compositing and xorg itself (which has been coming up in leaps and bounds), but about the desktop environments with which we...
I originally had a few problems with the flash 9 beta player and ff2, but they seem to have been resolved.
As of this post, I am watching a flash video on youtube in ff2 with the flash player 9 beta (in kubuntu 6.10), with absolutely no audio/video lag.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=16783
Read it. Tell me what you think/know.
I personally didn't know (or, i suppose, realize), that both KDE and GNOME have come pretty closely to a halt.
Kinda depressing.
I wasn't trying to troll, I just figured you were one of those people who blindly jumped in. I apologize for being condescending.
At any rate, I answered ya question, did I not? :P
I've got Xubuntu installed on my laptop, and I agree with Ghettobox. It's good. Runs well on my laptop.
Only other thing I'd suggest is make sure you have powernowd running. CPU scaling = better battery life.