I should elaborate myself then... (also; I almost guarantee your gnome problem and a lot of your issues will be the 94 mb swap.. everything ran like CRAP with even 128mb swap for me... I now have 600mb swap and my tablet almost NEVER reboots on it's own. Multi-tasking is easier too.) Maybe this will help people decide if they would like to try KDE4 or not..

Now the reason I say KDE4 is useless:
I want my tablet to function. Function means different things to different people.. but to me I want to be able to work on my tablet; and only feel slowed within reason for a 400mhz machine.

Now; the fastest window managers that I have tried so far are WIndow Maker; and IceWM.. But both of them are very cumbersome in configuration; applications; and general management of the desktop itself. Thus; while they are speedy - and don't get in the way; they are generally just an all around pain.

The next step up is XFCE... it is a little slower; but it provides easy management - and most of all a terminal that allows me to copy and paste; as well as other goodies.. and only at a slight speed cost. XFCE is a great choice (and one of my favorites even for a desktop machine.) The speed to functionality ratio of XFCE is the best IMHO.

KDE3 and Gnome are next. Both of these are slightly slower than all the previous but give you even more benefits to management, terminal capabilities, usage, and friendliness... The speed to functionality ratio to these is acceptable IMHO. And the winner for my favorite so far for the Tablet is Gnome.. for the simple fact of the extremely easy hack that grants gnome a completely functional Right Click. This is severely lacking in all other desktop environments.

And then there is KDE4. KDE4; so far as I can tell to this point; grants us nothing of value in the way of operation or management (and in my personal opinion, took the vista route and went backwards in these fields by moving everything).. it does grant us a better, more impressive "looking" environment to work in.. As well as a supposed "better" file and management utilities; but it comes with a larger speed loss on these devices. IMHO the speed to functionality ratio of KDE4 was just too poor.

I'd say that kde4 is "usable".. in the sense that when I installed the "known good" applications in it, IE: Epiphany, Xchat, etc.. I saw very little performance degradation in these applications - they were perfectly fine.. And the kde4 MENU works fine.. but the built-in kde4 applications like Dolphin, and Konqueror and the KDE4 configuration panels (the items that were supposed to be "better" for KDE4) fell well into the category of "not functional" because they were the kind of applications that you would launch.. start doing something else.. and then they pop up after you've already forgotten you were trying to run them. Konqueror was the worst of them.

So.. KDE4 will give you a good looking environment; and the menu system works (if that kind of menu system is your thing - again, think a hybrid of MAC and Vista.. I swear that's what it reminds me of.) So it's usable if you stick to your current applications in the new environment.. they will be a little slower; but not too much to notice. But the apps that come with KDE4... I just wouldn't bother.. they just slowed me down to the point of frustration.