Really, openSuSE!

Touchpad control - great!
Improved wireless handling - impressive!
No desktop effects without kernel tweaking - priceless.

The 11.3 installation report:

To get the Nvidia graphics driver working in 11.3 (source openSuSE forums):
YaST -> Boot Loader Settings -> Section Management: Edit the standard 11.3 boot option and add nomodeset to the kernel parameters at the bottom.
The System/Kernel option NO_KMS_IN_INITRD should be set to "Yes" in YaST's /etc/sysconfig editor.
Download the latest driver from Nvidia, reboot. Kill the X server from a root console with rcxdm stop (or switch to runlevel 3) and run the driver installer as a shell script. Restart the X server or reboot.
My nobly grizzled Tisiphone seemed incredibly sluggish with effects enabled; in retrospect, this might have been due to the incredible number of krunner plugins enabled by default. Still, scrolling is a bit slow.
Now for the good parts: I am really impressed by the KSynaptics and KNetworkManager improvements, both work without a hitch. (two-finger tapping and sideways scrolling, yay!) I'm glad to have a few KDE 4.4 features back (e.g. inline spell check, the device manager panel applet and the improved icon handling in vertical panels). Major KDE apps like Amarok or Digikam come in shiny, recent versions without horribly conflicting with other KDE components - and talking of package conflicts: finally I can run eric and frescbaldi on the same system (OK, I don't think a lot of people had that particular problem).
I'm not sure all repositories are complete yet - no Nvidia repo and I didn't find a working and up-to-date python-matplotlib anywhere.
Apart from the ado about the Nvidia driver, the installation was easy and not very different from 11.2's. I had no network connection during setup, as the DVD installer doesn't seem to know PEAP, but that didn't bother me much.
So, while it's probably not the linux distribution you'd recommend to your granny, it's a very decent piece of work from the openSuSE people.
Update: More bad news about the driver issue - I can't get either nVidia's TwinView or screen extensions with disper to work properly. On a very basic level, screen cloning (disper -c) works, so it should be possible to use a projector. The nVidia config applet keeps complaining about failing metamodes. Meh.
More Updates: Nvidia repo is up and running, driver version 175 works OK, apart from some troubles setting the main screen and the occasional disper failure.