Internet Explorer is more "customisable" than previous editions and Nomita's post shows how. My favourites are there along with a few I hadn't noticed. I've been using IE8 full time for about a month now and have found it fine.
I've only resorted to compatibility mode a couple of times and the one, site related, "to desktop crash" I've had was recovered gracefully when IE8 was restarted. The only real negative is the "BlogJet This" IE add-in doesn't function but I believe a fix for that is on the way...
Customization in IE8 - blogs.msdn.com/ie
I am a user interface tester on the Internet Explorer team and one of my favorite things about any application is the ability to personalize the program to give it your own look and feel.