XP Pro - new user & hating it. Need advice.

[babbler]

My 4 year old computer gave up the ghost on Monday, so I got a diagnoses/recommendation and proceeded to an upgrade, which includes XP Pro. So far all I can say is I really really miss Win98se and am only forcing myself to adapt to this ugly and slow(er) OS. I'd like to know from you pros what I can get rid of to speed things up. (like MSN Messaging and NetMeeting etc.) I looked at XPTweaks site and tried a few tweaks, but it's not any faster. Couldn't believe how long the log on screen took so I got rid of it.
Things I'm unsure of:
-get ZoneAlarm or stay with XP's firewall?
-get my former antiviri (NOD and BitDefender) because I don't want to stay with Norton.
-is there no EndItAll for XP?
-I have Ghost - do I just let it run on it's own or actively make it image my drive?
-why does EVERY window open less than max? ($%@#ing thing)
-is Power DVD useful when I only have a CD Rom and CD burner?

Any helpful tweak sites you might suggest would be appreciated.

System Specs:
mobile AMD Athlon XP-M
1600+
1.40 GHz
224 MB of RAM
80GB hard drive (in 10/10/60GB partitions)
what else do you need to know?

thanks in advance for any input. right now I'm hating this very much......: