ROM's of the 3(++) Kingdoms

I have not flashed since the Mogul days when DCD ROM's were king. Now it seems that with DCD's passing from the scene, chaos has spread throughout the land and every third poster has a thread going for their own ROM. So, can anyone give a summary of what ROM's are the most popular, supported, and have the most balaced feature set. I don't need everything extremely stripped down because I dont expect to ever run out of space on the flash drive. On the other hand I don't want so many things preloaded the ROM runs slower than stock. Something with a similar number, but some more useful, programs than the stock rom would be fine. If a clean ROM is currently the standard then I guess I need to find cabs for pdf, office, java, opera, etc which is sort of a pain.

Also, I don't know all these terms like Manila and Rhodium and it seems like they are thrown around like they should. I dont see much explanation of what is different between various ROMs. That Juicy ROM looks popular but there is no explanation of how it differs from other ROMS by what it includes. Also, I never used a kitchen. Is that complicated, do I have to learn some command lines or edit some ini type file with great understanding of what I am doing and poor documentation to assist me? Will that run ok in Vista? Can someone just give a short explanation of the most popular roms and how they are different from eachother? If you have your own ROM and it is not popular but you would like to promote it, sorry, I am probably not your guy as I dont have the time to remain on the scene and update every week. I need something that has been vetted and I can run for 2-3 months+ and will still be around then for me to update.

P.S. I am on Sprint.