Sounds pretty common!
About Qubes: I was just playing with it a couple of weeks ago. It's interesting, and I'd consider using it except for one thing. When you're running a browser, the cursor doesn't change when hovering over a link. I know it sounds nitpicky, but I kind of want/need that. I did some digging around and didn't get any solution. Are you OK with that, or did you find a workaround?